The Losing Side
by Thorn In Your Side
Summary: There was once a beautiful, super-refined ultrafantastic princess who fell in love with a prince of the appropriate qualities and lived forever after in bliss. This is the story of everyone who was pissed off at their happy ending. Ichigo/Harem
1. Classic

**The Losing Side**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.**

**A/N: This was supposed to be a one-shot but the minute I decided the title I realized it was a multi-chapter deal. XD I hastened to conclude Exciting Proposal because oh my god, I can't handle more than one of these things at a time, and so with much pride in my heart I give you my offering. **

**Chapter One: **_Classic _**  
**

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x **

It was siesta time, and Karakura town was snoozing.

"Ya snooze, ya lose."

One unlikely pair, though, had determined that boozing was a suitable substitute for snoozing. Fuck happy hours. Renji and Uryuu _**needed **_to get pissed.

Renji said it again and Uryuu chortled.

"I wasn't actually _**snoozing,**_ you know." He crossed his legs under the table and tipped more sake into his glass. "I was sewing. Large, lacquered buttons from Kyoto onto a silk shirt. For the school's adaptation of Hamlet—or was it Romeo and Juliet? One of those. She was my partner. Did the seams."

Renji admired the way Uryuu handled his drink. Sentences got shorter, but no less lucid.

"What happened?"

"Kurosaki saw her first."

"He called shotgun?"

Uryuu shouted. It was a laugh, in his way. "No. She did."

Renji contemplated his fingers and snorted. "Sucks some sweaty ball sacks, don't it?"

"_**Doesn't **_it."

"Does it?"

"Tch, Abarai…"

Uryuu's apartment was a one bedroom, two bathroom affair above the Tsuruya bakery that supplied Kakakura's most sumptuous bread. Buttery smells were forever wafting upwards, warming the young brunet's home and the cockles of his heart. There was a small kitchen and an alcove for the breakfast table where they sat. The living room didn't have a TV; the single sofa faced windows and a low shelf of books.

"Why _**two **_bathrooms?" Renji quizzed.

"When someone sleeps over? More efficient in the mornings."

Not a lot of people _**had **_slept over. In fact Uryuu was pretty sure Renji was the first. Assuming he stayed here till dark, of course, when Uryuu would politely insist his guest stay the remainder of the night. He wondered why his life was so lonely and decided introspection didn't sit well with cheap rice wine.

"You and Kuchiki-san. How did you meet?"

Renji told him. Uryuu nodded.

"What separated you?"

He let go of her hand all over again.

"Why would you do that?"

"What else should I've done?" **_Bitterness_** sat well with cheap rice wine: Uryuu would have to remember. "Was I supposed to be the selfish jack shit to stand between her and her chance to belong to a family? To stop her from leading a good life, just because I didn't want her to lead it without me?"

"Yes. You should have."

Mutual resentment turned to unhelpful advice with barely a jolt. Renji stared unintelligently. Uryuu went on.

"Had you held her back. She wouldn't have met Shiba Kaien. Nor Kurosaki." Uryuu blinked. "Maybe she wanted you to hold her back. Thought of that, Abarai?"

"I try not to."

Silence sidled up to them and kissed their cheeks.

"It looks like rain," Uryuu commented at length.

"Ishida, do you think Inoue would've gone for you if, you know, you asked? Before Ichigo nearly died for her, I mean. That's gotta give 'im the edge."

"I nearly died for Inoue-san as well," Uryuu nibbled his lower lip thoughtfully, "She doesn't like him any better for that. To be honest? She's saturated with love. And not so weak that she would take any man but the one she wants."

"I don't think Rukia's stubborn in the same way," Renji heavily said, "She's lost love once so she knows she it can happen again. She doesn't let herself hope too much for Ichigo. Scared it'll end up in misery, and who can blame her?"

Silence stalked back and helped itself to a taste of their lips. This time it stayed a while.

000

Three hours later it was finely drizzling and they were officially plastered. Renji lolled on the living room carpet while Uryuu burrowed into the sofa, searching for something.

"Ish'da, let'shh do something shtupid."

"I won't—hic—get married to you…"

"Gud. I'as thinkin' of somethin' on a—a smaller schkale."

"Hmm?" Uryuu's backside rose in the air. He dug his fingers through the cushions.

"Let'shh jump in th'canal."

"What for? It's two feet deep these warm summer evenings…"

"Zactly."

Uryuu didn't get it, but he was game. Renji _**could **_have married him, he was that soaked in alcohol. Loose-limbed gaiety took them to the end of the street; mild confusion took them the rest of the way. Standing on the canal's banks, they agreed to strip to their underwear. Just for the…the liberating experience of it. For the fully sozzled hell of it.

"Communing with nature," Uryuu said.

"Naw, you gotta be buck nekkid fo' it t'count." Renji's words tripped over themselves and he held Uryuu's hand tightly.

"Okay?"

"Okay."

They tossed themselves into the shallow waters.

000

"Ishida! Isn't that your son?"

Uryuu's father adjusted his glasses and coolly eyed Kurosaki Isshin from under his umbrella. "Why would you assume that?"

"He's in his undies, holding hands with a guy."  
"Oh, ha-ha, you bitingly witty man—"

"They've jumped into the canal." Isshin wow-weed. "I'd say they're drunk as hell. Tch, so young to be an alcoholic…Uryuu takes after you."

Ryuuken turned a furiously cold back on his resented drinking partner. "It won't be his death. I intend to go home."

Alas, it was not to be. A hand hooked his collar and propelled him backwards. "Help me get the kids first, they'll be arrested for making a nuisance. You want that black mark on your son's record when he applies for college?"

"We're estranged," Ryuuken propelled his own damn self, and Kurosaki keep your hands away. "I shouldn't care."

"Funny how it doesn't stop you from caring though, huh? C'mon," Isshin furled his umbrella and broke into an enthusiastic jog, "Race ya there!"

Ryuuken walked.

Each man helped a dripping youngster to his unsteady feet. Renji and Uryuu, too wasted to notice anything, thought it was all freaking amazing. Isshin threw the red-haired one over his broad shoulder like his own child and, placing a hand on his bum to keep him there, strode away. Ryuuken went with, picking up Uryuu in his arms, bridal style. Cradling him, almost.

Isshin glanced over at the rare spectacle. "You're so tender. Would it kill you to be that way to him when he's conscious?"

"Silence. I will not be lectured by a man who advices his son to enjoy his daughters' panty-less touch."

"Heh, that story made its way to you? Impressive."

"Other adjectives occur to the mind."

Uryuu's place was the sensible option. Ryuuken would be damned before stepping into Isshin's home, and equally unwilling to offer Renji a place in his.

"You have a key to your kid's house?" Isshin raised an eyebrow as Ryuuken indicated its presence. "Isn't that a violation of his privacy?"

"Says the man who bursts regularly in on his daughters' baths."

"Hey now, that third time was an accident."

They deposited their loads on the sofa and left a note explaining briefly and plausibly what had happened to the duo. Ryuuken asked the obvious question.

"How did these two, of all people, get so stupendously inebriated together? Never there was a more unlikely pair of bar buddies."

Isshin coughed slightly to remind the good doctor that there was too, and they themselves comprised it. Ryuuken started and contemplated the man's face. Isshin said shrewdly:

"Women. No better thing for young boys to bond over."

"Women," repeated Ryuuken, his bronze eyes contemplating his son instead.

"Yep. I know for a fact that the little Inoue girl fell for my Ichigo, and your Uryuu's fond of her. The shinigami…well, he's Rukia-chan's best friend. Maybe he resents taking second seat to my son."

"Your child appears to be quite the stud."

"Naturally, nothing else could be expected with such a fine piece of ass for an old man."

"I feel I may vomit."

"You always say that," Isshin was grinning, "Oh, lighten up, Ishida. Are you going to let that stick in your ass forbid your own son from the first real friend he's probably made? Uryuu doesn't get along with Ichigo, but he seems to like the redhead well enough. Don't take him away…"

Ryuuken let his fingers graze the tips of Uryuu's. A flash of light on his glasses hid his eyes. "I don't suppose he would listen to me even if I did forbid him."

Isshin watched.

The moment passed.

"Rebellious teenagers. We'll keep an eye on them," Isshin said, and Ryuuken led the way out.

000

The morning after was sad and gloomy.

"Ohhh," Uryuu groaned, a novice at handling hangovers. Renji snored wisely on, knowing better than to wake up before noon. Matsumoto Rangiku had taught him well and had she been there she would've drawn the drapes against the grey sunshine probing the windows inquisitively. Incapacitated Uryuu only pulled a cushion over his face and tried not to feel. His first sleepover seemed quite the failure. Why had he allowed himself to imbibe so much poison…?

The imbibed poison took unkindly to being addressed thus and knocked him out again.

When next he stirred, the kitchen smelled hella fine and Renji was stirring something in a pot. It was evening. Uryuu felt the time in his bones and also the digital clock on the wall.

"Wake up, Ishida, I need some help. I'm making stew but I need you to run down and get some of those chunky walnut rolls and take out the trash otherwise the place will smell like empty booze bottles."

Uryuu had heard of people who fell asleep and slipped into alternate realities via wandering wormholes. Obviously it had happened to him. How else would this domestic daydream be explained?

"Ishida, are you freakin' listening to me?"

But something was amiss. Surely in an alternate reality he would feel some attraction to Renji instead of the ache for Orihime. The brunet relaxed only slightly when he realized how much more likely it was that he had simply married Renji in some blind ardor roused by last night's excess of spirits.

"Hurry your ass up, Kuchiki-taichou will be here any minute!"

He perused the alternate-reality theory again because there was _**no reason**_ conceivable in even the most contrived of circumstances for Byakuya to darken his doorstep in the life he knew, ever.

Renji spared him a glance and recognized that old look of virgin drunkards creation wide: the one that said it did _**not **_know what to make of anything at the moment and can someone please turn down the volume. He set the stew on simmer and sat himself with Uryuu to sort it all out.

"Captains get concerned when lieutenants play hooky. I told him where I was and he's coming to verify my alibi. I think he trusts you or something, yeesh, more than me. Gotta make him dinner 'cause it's polite, and gotta clean up because we don't want him thinkin' I go around introducing sixteen year olds to booze."

"But you did."

"Not the point."

"I would think it rather is."

"Shut up," Renji suggested, and Uryuu acquiesced. Forty minutes later, the knock on the door and Byakuya behind it came as expected.

The fury in his features and the fat lip were less predictable.

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

**I always had the vague intention of writing this ever since I started noticing the incredible number of Naruto/Whoever pairings. But since I'm binging on Bleach, I transferred the harem rights from the blond to the redhead. (Orange-head? Orangutan? Strawberry!) I'm less confident in my ability to make this work than I was with Exciting Proposal which—flowed—and meant—a lot—so give me lots of encouragement and love; I'll try and make this worth it. **


	2. The Sister Complex

**The Losing Side**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach. **

**A/N: Imouto is little sister. People, pay attention; you should know this by now. **

**Chapter Two: **_The Sister Complex_**  
**

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

Tonight on the menu: Kuchiki Byakuya.

If you're looking for something to eat (not that _**he **_isn't yummy but he might object to being nibbled on) at Wolfgang Ishida's then there's soba noodles and walnut rolls, plus ice cold pomegranate juice mixed with tea which is so not a strange thing to drink.

Renji held a glass of the above mentioned good stuff to his captain's bleeding lip while yelling at Uryuu to get some ice. That done, he glowered at Byakuya.

"Tell me who did it, cap'n, and I'll bring you his head."

"Would you believe me if I said it was Rukia?"

"_**What**_?" the red haired dolly yelped as Uryuu came back. Byakuya tried hard to reign in the residual emotions on his face. Anger was so undignified.

"She was aiming for Kurosaki Ichigo."

"_**What**_!" the yelp was of a higher, more delighted key. Byakuya raised an eyebrow.

"I dropped by his home to say hello and walked in on them kissing."

Uryuu reflected on what a good thing it was that he'd exchanged the pomegranate/tea glass in Renji's hand for an ice pack as it slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor.

"What."

"I admit I lost my temper." Byakuya seemed likely to lose it again, "I struck him. Well—he was kissing my _**sister**_." Renji hated the apologetic note that seeped into his revered captain's sepulchral tones. Uryuu broke considerately in.

"Strike him? I think I would have shot him. A remarkable display of self-control, Kuchiki-san."

"Thank you." Byakuya continued. "Though I think it was only for lack of firearms…in any case, he attempted no retaliation, which normally should have stopped me but—as I said, I lost my temper. Rukia tried to knock him out herself to step me hurting him but he dodged _**her**_, the stupid boor—out of reflex, I think—and, well." He touched his lip. "I quite deserved it."

"Captain," Renji began objecting, obviously of the opinion that his superior would never 'deserve' an indignity like injury, but Byakuya headed him off.

"No harm done, Renji."

But there was harm done: more than met the eye. Rukia, having walloped her brother in the mouth, had no doubt looked horrified but what mild horror was that compared to the strong stuff in Byakuya's heart? Assuming the ability to ignore Renji's feelings (if possible to trivialize such cascading, jealous, hurt feelings) Uryuu was sure there was around Byakuya the air of a threatened animal. The fear of slipping to second place. It was same fear Renji had expressed last night and Uryuu inferred that they would need alcohol tonight as well. Just enough to have the defeated captain unloading his burden. Ichigo had his sister. Byakuya would have beer.

Leaving the two colleagues to comfort each other, Uryuu took his wallet and left the house.

000

Byakuya hesitated.

"Renji…"

Renji hesitated.

"Cap'n?"

The brunet was sitting on the couch, his lieutenant kneeling at his feet. Byakuya thought what he was about to say would be cruel, but all the same: he couldn't keep it to himself, this burning reproach.

"You should have asked her before she met him."

"Which him?" There was a tired, sour bitterness in the redhead's throat dyed his words purple and pestered. Byakuya was doing it subtly, but he was still pointing fingers. It was somehow Renji's fault that Ichigo and Rukia had wound up as one. "Ishida thinks I shouldn't have let her go. Not to you. Not to Shiba. Not to Ichigo."

Byakuya stiffened (in the _**spine!**_ No where else) at the baffling concept of being disallowed his own (no) dear (yes) sister (in law). He loosened when Renji met his eyes, giving in to the boy's superior loss. Byakuya feared having his place as the number one man in Rukia's life usurped but that was Renji's position originally; it had been usurped continuously since they left the Rukongai as children. Byakuya loathed the idea that Ichigo might be able to protect her better and make her happier than her brother could; Renji had always known there were better men than him to watch over her. All Byakuya faced was having Rukia choose Ichigo if he opposed their union and even then when the need to see his imouto surmounted his pride he could make amends and Rukia would return. Renji, _le pauvre, _was forever drifting apart from his one true love.

"How do you stand it?"

Renji shook his head despairingly. "Have you ever gotten drunk with a hurt heart, Kuchiki-taichou?"

"Renji," Byakuya didn't know, "Alcohol is not an answer to everyone's troubles."

"Must be unique to me, then."  
"Renji..." Byakuya slid off the sofa and onto his knees, showing his subordinate that they were in the same boat here. "I…"

Like Ichigo bursting in via window to demand Renji's attention, the something nice to be said between these two men was interrupted by Uryuu's return. He was surreptitious, but Byakuya didn't want to finish that sentence with an audience. Renji didn't mind. He knew what it was all about.

"Excuse me," Uryuu said, "I'll use the restroom now. Please wait for me to come and serve you." He deposited the bag of beer cans on the kitchen counter and headed to his room. Renji filled the silence with dispirited words.

"I joined your division to surpass you, captain—that you already know. I originally made you my goal so that I could look you in the eye when I asked for Rukia's hand. I was so naïve…I thought of overcoming you as an obstacle on my way to her without ever wondering if she _**wanted **_me to overcome. Come to her. And…ha! By the time I became your vice-captain it was way too late. Throwing myself into reaching you, I never spent any time with her. Our bond…hah! Well, it was now nothing more than a half-forgotten thread in the fabric of her life. And now I find I needn't have bothered because you thought me a worthy candidate all along."  
"Not all along."

Renji's eyes startled at the hand Byakuya put on his knee.

"Not until quite recently did I acknowledge the worth of your emotions. It wasn't for nothing…or is Rukia's the only approval that matters? I think highly of you. Does that mean something?"

Gratitude strangled the redhead's response so that Byakuya had trouble discerning it. "Captain…I…_**yes. **_It means the world to me."

His captain took his hand back, but not his solidarity. The Kuchiki lord's blue eyes roasted the beer cans Uryuu, returned from his trip to the heartbreak room, was pouring into iced glasses. He accepted his share with a tart smile to the Quincy.

"I wonder. I Renji a good tutor in the art of inebriation, Ishida-kun?"

Both culprits went crimson. Kuchiki Byakuya sipped his beer.

"Certainly, he seems to have set a good example. A connoisseur couldn't have picked a better brand."

000

The good brand beer cans lay scattered hither and thither and Byakuya's body too was split evenly between Renji's shoulder and Uryuu's stomach. That is to say, Rukia's big brother was drunk enough to lean his head on his lieutenant and prop his feet up on Ryuuken's son.

And he'd reached this stage willingly.

Uryuu stared up at the ceiling, sprawled on his back with his hands grasping Byakuya's toes. _**He **_wasn't drunk, merely because his first hangover was still ramming his head warningly. Renji had abstained too; Byakuya had finished the vast majority of the two six-packs himself. Impressive.

"Are you surprised, Ishida-kun?"

To find him awake—yes. Byakuya's eyes had been closed and his breathing even.

"What at, cap'n?"

Uryuu sat up as Byakuya withdrew his feet and lifted his head from Renji's shoulder. So then. They had none of them been sleeping, just wallowing in their own muddy thoughts. Apparently, Byakuya had had enough.

"That a brother can be wounded by his sister's happiness."

_**They **_weren't surprised, _**he **_was. He was guilty. He wanted to be joyous to think Rukia's heart was whole and happy, but he was just pissed off with the whole affair. Renji and Uryuu looked askance at each other. The Quincy spoke first.

"A brother is his own person. His happiness doesn't depend on her, though her affection for him can have an impact."

"Captain I'm her best friend and I'm torn to pieces by her happiness. You have every fucking right to feel shitty. Please don't judge yourself and suck the joy out of the critics' existence."

Byakuya laughed. Like Uryuu's, it was a bark of brief emotion. A companionable immobility threw its casual arms around them all, tying them into this evening of abandoned grief. Byakuya was glad he came. He was glad Renji had found Uryuu. He might even, with time, be glad of Kurosaki Ichigo finding Rukia. The digital clock beeped the hour, and Renji got a message on his cell from Seireitei. Byakuya skimmed through it and nodded.

"Ishida-kun, you have been a generous host."

"Please, call me Uryuu. And you're leaving?"

The brunet rose, and even daffodil'd. Smiling down at the young man, he went, "Yes. Renji, I think we've stayed the full length of our welcome here. Time to get back to work."

"Kuchiki-taichou!" his deputy objected, alert at once, "You can't go back to Soul Society like this!"

"Yes," Uryuu frowned, "You should spend the night here."

Byakuya had never listened before and saw no reason to start now. "Renji, stand. I trust you to get me home safe, with my dignity intact." A smile, blissfully forgetful of his aching heart. "Take care of me."

Renji seized his wobbling captain with all the loyal ferocity of a samurai sworn to his lord. And really, he was nothing less.

"Captain…if you insist. Uryuu," he nodded, "See ya round?"

"Without fail," the bespectacled boy agreed, "Renji."

Byakuya raised a warm hand in farewell. The doors to Soul Society slid open, and upon their close Uryuu was home alone.

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

**When I say pomegranate juice with tea, don't think of it as…like, juice in tea with milk and sugar. Just juice in the decoction. I've never been brave enough to try, but a friend of mine vouches for it. **


	3. Thesis One

**The Losing Side**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach. **

**A/N: I don't know Rikichi's family name…and actually, Rikichi might be his family name since Renji called him it but I like to think they're close enough to be on a first name basis so. For his family name. I chose Ichihara, for Yuko of xxxHolic. **

**A kinagashi is an informal men's kimono...do you remember Ikakku in his flashback during the bankai episode? Yeah, like that!  
**

**Chapter Three: **_Father's Destructive Passion, Thesis One _**  
**

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

There was once a beautiful fairy tale written about an ultrafantastic super refined princess who fell in love with a good-looking prince of the appropriate traits and lived ever after in bliss.

This is the story of everyone who was pissed off by their happy ending.

000

Uryuu said a wry, "I'm home," to the empty apartment as was his wont. Surprisingly, today the apartment replied with a tentative, "Um, welcome back…Ishida-san…"

The brunet stared.

The brunet bowed.

I mean, **_our _**brunet stared. The other one, the one kneeling demurely on the carpet in front of the sofa, **_he _**bowed. **_He _**was an envoy from Abarai Renji, vice-captain of Division Six of Gotei 13 of Seireitei of yo momma's underpants.

(Oops.)

Rikichi raised his head and offered a smile that Uryuu denied with a fearsomely cold expression. His Quincy bowstring twanged against Quincy forearm as Quincy hand pulled a Quincy arrow from a Quincy quiver.

"How do you know my name?"

Rikichi dropped back into a bow faster than you could say 'fwop'. "Ishida-san! My name is Ichihara Rikichi and I was sent by Abarai Renji-fukutaichou of—"

"Renji?" Uryuu dropped his bow immediately. "Oh, yes, of course—I remember. You brought Hanatarou-san to Renji after he was injured in his fight with Kuchiki-san." Injured? More like falling head over heels into death's waiting arms, "I apologize for not recognizing you right away, Ichihara-san. What is it?"

"Abarai-fukutaichou sent you a message." Rikichi seemed more at ease when not threatened with his life, "Here it is, sir." He proffered a cream envelope with both hands and Uryuu blinked as he took it.

"Please, there is no need to call me sir. I'm much younger than you, you may call me Ishida."

Renji's Renji was totally into that shit. "Got it, Ishida-kun."

The outside of the envelope said _Renji _in case Rikichi was stupid enough to not mention who it was from and the inside made a proposition that had Uryuu flipping his crumbly little heart out.

_Yo! _

_ Mah man. Sorry if the calligraphy sucks—oh wait what am I apologizing to you for, I don't care if it sucks I talked to Kuchiki-taichou and got permission so the stuff I'm saying next isn't really an invitation so much as an order because I did not go through all this hell that I went through just to have you turn me down. _Also, go get bent, punctuation. _This weekend, come to Soul Society. _Like inviting him to the movies. _My pad's bitchin', way better than yours. I put in a mini bar because I can and I think it's as good a place to get drunk as any. Kuchiki-taichou agrees that I can't leave your education in…what'd he say? Oh yeah, the art of inebriation hanging half-way. _He also agrees with **_me_**~**_ee_** that Renji couldn't tell cutting-edge sarcasm from the next weapon in Byakuya's arsenal. _He's written a note allowing you to travel the Corridor between Worlds with Rikichi who's actually taking his vacation days off to do this—I swear the kid's an angel—so pack your bags and get over here. _

_ We'll go apeshit, _

_ Renji_

Packing a duffel bag full of belongings that would survive Renji going apeshit took fourteen minutes. Waiting for the weekend took two days.

000

Two doctors sat in a dodgy bar by the river, with two pints of beer...

Don't fucking run away, it's not the start of a fucking bartender joke. The sun outside was ready to set and the air between them ready to freeze with one's disapproval for the other. The one doing the disapproving blanched delicately as the one being disapproved of stuck a finger up his own nose.

"Loathsome. **__****This **is what you insisted I leave the hospital early for? Kurosaki, unlike you I am a real doctor who has people depending on him."

"Relax, I was only doing it 'cause you seemed so uptight. This place is alright, they wash their glasses."

"I'm leaving."

"So is Uryuu."

Ryuuken's grip on the washed glass tightened and his eyes fixed on Isshin's unappealing face sharpened. The father of three wore a grin the same way he insisted on wearing his wife's old apron when cooking: mistakenly believing it made him appear to be an approachable man-child, when really it only served to make Ryuuken want to fire a thousand shots from his hand-held bow straight into the brunet's heart. Though here, in the middle of happy hour at a bottom feeder's bar...this was hardly the place. The second-to-last Quincy pulled himself together and took a sip of the beer. It was surprisingly sweet on the tongue, more like sherry than beer. But if there was anything Ryuuken would trust Isshin with, it was his taste in alcohol, so he kept his opinions to himself.

And not just on the drink.

"I found out 'cause I'm friendly with the local shopkeepers, like." That was Urahara Kisuke's current avatar, in any case. "Abarai Renji, 6th Division vice-captain, sent him an escort and invitation. Just for the weekend, you understand. An hour, tops, before the senkaimon pops open." Isshin could talk nonstop for the next hour for all Ryuuken cared, this had nothing to do with him. "Do you wanna come to a movie with me?"

Wait, what?

Ryuuken rubbed his head and said, "You must be joking."

Isshin rubbed his chin and said, "You're just scared of being seen in public with a man as handsome as I am because people will think you're my father."

"White hair to me comes from the stress of managing a true practice and a deficiency in the diet. And **_with _**it I look far more attractive than you ever have in your entire life, Kurosaki."

The hairier man downed his beer and shrugged off Ryuuken's remonstration. "Then come to the movie with me. Let's see who can get more school girls fawning over them tonight."

Ryuuken shifted on the barstool, unhappy with the way it fit his bottom. Perfectly ironed linen pants were going be creased by this sort of stupid seating. He much preferred their regular haunt, a pub near Karakura's shopping district that had a less gruesome feel to it. There their arrival was acknowledged by all the bartenders and the corner booth cleared for Isshin and Ryuuken to claim. Here a man with one eye played pool behind Ryuuken's back, releasing ululating calls every time he sunk a ball. The Quincy fully expected him to take the cue to his opponent's head in about five minutes.

"You're a pig, Kurosaki. You have three children living with you and you want to hanker after high school girls? Stay faithful to your wife."

"Mamma would want me to be happy," he tried to hide his grin behind his glass but it leaked into his tone. "Misaki used to say it was okay for me to look at other women because she knew I was seeing her in them."

Ryuuken shook his head in malcontent disbelief. "And a woman like that agreed to be your bride."

"You always told me I was a rare case," Isshin cheerfully reminded him, "So it's only fair I got a rare woman, eh?"

"What movie did you say it was?"

"Yeah, that's the spirit. Forget all about your son socializing with shinigami for the next two days and enjoy 'The Springtime of Youthful Cherry Blossoms' with me..."

"A romance? Sweet heavens, Kurosaki, they won't mistake me for your father, they will mistake me for your lover. And if your intention is to actually make me forget where Uryuu is going, don't bloody remind me."

The bill was paid. The tickets were booked. The conversation, continued.

000

When Renji had said, "I put in a mini-bar because I can," he'd honestly meant he just...put it in. Without considering how it would look in a traditional Japanese style room, he'd boxed off one corner of the tatami mat covered space with a curving bar table of dark wood and granite. Two shelves teetered behind it, heavy with glasses and liquor, all brand Rukongai. Renji confessed that the stuff brewed inside Seireitei was like weak piss to him, for he'd been brought up in the outer districts on a noxious diet of stolen bread and swiped booze. Uryuu laid his bag in the vice-captain's guest room and sat out on the porch with the redhead. Unlike the rest of the division, a lieutenant was required to live on the grounds to avail himself in case of emergency or fire. The evening settled contentedly over 6th Division, with a changing shift setting the tune for their conversation.

"Alright, how are you going to entertain me the next two days?"

Renji stretched his legs and let his hair down. "Did you somehow miss all the bottles inside?"

"You're joking. Renji, I don't intend to get drunk ever again."

"No one intends these things," the officer grinned, "They just kinda happen, don't they? But yeah, we can't kick back the whole time with a decanter. Captain's coming over for dinner tonight, and I invited Ikkaku-san. We'll see where things go. In my experience, the best nights are completely unplanned."

The Quincy looked back indoors. "Should we start cooking?"

"Nah, it's a potluck. Kuchiki-taichou insisted. Ikkaku-san's bringing borscht and captain's bringing...well, a lot of things I expect. We're supplying the booze." Standing, Renji held out a hand to Uryuu. "Wanna go walk around town for a bit? I mean every time you're here you just rush through killin' enemies."

A smile was inevitable. Uryuu didn't take the hand, but he took the bait. "I'll admit the finer points of architecture passed me by as I destroyed them. Let's go."

Seireitei by evening was a cornucopia of activity. Well so was his hometown but Karakura was a human town; Seireitei was a militant city. Shinigami strode past him, at ease after hours and Uryuu had to marvel. Was this the race he had sworn to hate as a child? Were these the people he'd borne a grudge against, these same ones walking by him with a surprised smile when they saw his human clothes next to Renji's off-duty kinagashi?

"Oho, it's the test subject who defied!"

No, these people weren't. This one man was.

"Kurotsuchi-taichou!" Renji immediately put himself between the last Quincy and the last menace left within the city walls. "Good evening..."

Uryuu balled a fist and coldly said, "Hello, Kurotsuchi Mayuri."

The nailed nutjob nagged. "I thought you would at least latch an honorific on, Quincy. No one else seems to be in the habit anymore."

"Kurotsuchi-taichou," Renji repeated uncertainly, having assumed -taichou to be honorific enough. His dark haired companion turned his face away in anger and disgust, catching sight of Mayuri's daughter as he did so. She was lurking in her creator's shadow, demure and dismissible as ever with her downcast eyes and downy skin. Nemu held in her hands a bag full of groceries, or actually considering the duo's vocation it might well be filled with poisoned drugs and surgical instruments. Uryuu reigned his emotions in. This girl wasn't responsible for her father's depravity.

"Good evening, Nemu-san," he said, "How are you?"

"Very well, thank you, Ishida-san." Her deadpan tone was nicer to hear than Mayuri's cackle as he conversed with Renji. "It's plain to see you are well. Is Kurosaki Ichigo the same?"

"Nemu! Honestly, you useless little bitch, do I keep you around to socialize for me?" the 12th Division captain's voice whipped the air above her head; she flinched. "Get those sweets home, and don't dally on the way. Abarai-fukutaichou," he returned to his talk nonchalantly, "How's your zanpakutou doing?"

Renji waited until Nemu said, "I apologize, Mayuri-sama," before looking taken aback.

"Zabimaru? He's alright. Why, is something wrong?"

"I was only hoping," sighed Mayuri, "I wanted to continue my experiments on the materialization of zanpakutou but no one seems willing to lend me theirs. I remembered you seemed rather discontent with yours during the rebellion and thought you might want to retire it for a fresher model."

"You can make new zanpakutou?" Renji was as intrigued as he was nauseated. Uryuu who'd been watching Nemu's retreating back decided like so many before him that he wanted to defend her, and whirled on Kurotsuchi Mayuri.

"You can't treat her that way!"

"Why not?" replied Mayuri, who'd been through this argument with everyone from Unohana Retsu to Madarame Ikkaku, "I made her. Just because she has a pretty face doesn't mean you have to rescue her. Nemu was made for my convenience and I treat her in the most convenient way. And, Abarai, they're born from your soul. Hypothetically I can rip another piece of your soul from you and force it to take shape."

Renji shuddered. "No thank you. I'd rather take Zabimaru's trash talk."

"Such a piteous lack of scientific spirit..."

"She's still a human!"

"She is a shinigami, you foolish boy, and she is mine. Then, Abarai-fukutaichou, is that all?"

"Yeah, Kurotsuchi-taichou...Uryuu, let's head back," Renji knew exactly what he was doing; the brunet's mood was likely ruined by this encounter and it would be no fun to walk around town with a moody Uryuu, "Kuchiki-taichou might show early for surprise inspection or something. We'll bring out the good beer and chill it while we wait for him."

Retreating Mayuri threw a casual comment over his shoulder. "Beer and Kuchiki Byakuya? I didn't realize the two mixed."

"Naw," unveiled Renji, "Captain drinks socially. We're having an informal dinner tonight at my place; Ikkaku-san's coming too."

"Interesting. May I come as well? It will be a good chance to observe if a Kuchiki's pride stays rigid even during times of merrymaking."

"Uh..." Renji didn't think Mayuri was a fun guy to hang out with, but when a captain wanted to invite himself a lieutenant wasn't in a position to refuse. "I don't think Kuchiki-taichou's gonna get drunk, not really. But of course, you can come if you'd like. It's a potluck," he added, regretting it instantaneously. Uryuu rolled his eyes and made up his mind right then and there to refuse to eat whatever vile dish Mayuri brought along.

"Fine, I'll bring the cakes we just bought," Mayuri mused, "A gathering of men! Most exciting. Well, what time shall I show myself, Abarai-fukutaichou?"

"In an hour'll be great."

"Until then. Abarai, Quincy." With a sanctimonious nod he turned away. Uryuu belatedly blurted out:

"I have a name!"

But Kurotsuchi Mayuri wasn't really listening. The brunet jabbed a finger into Renji's tattooed chest. "Are you out of your mind? If he uses me in his scientific forays in my drunken stupor, I shall hold you accountable."

"I thought you weren't going to get drunk?" Renji grinned. "Relax. He probably won't stay long. If he does...well, come to think of it, a wasted Kurotsuchi Mayuri-taichou might be fun as opposed to freaky. Aren't you curious?"

"Not at all."

"Then **_you_** un-invite him, see how he takes it."

"I'm not curious to find out how he will," grimly Uryuu accepted his fate, "Renji, is this part of your plan to go apeshit?"

"Hey, it's working out so far."

"I doubt I'll survive to see the end of it."

"I'll write you a letter when you arrive in the Rukongai," Renji brightly assured him, "C'mon, let's go."

000

C'mon, let's go. Kurotsuchi Mayuri thought the scientific equivalent of the phrase to himself as he changed his robes, calling out to Nemu to wrap some of the fancier pastries for the party.

C'mon, let's go. Zaraki Kenpachi said that as he led Madarame Ikkaku's way, having decided that it'd been long enough since his last bout with Kuchiki Byakuya for him to be missing the wuss's sniffy, disapproving glares. He had his own reasons for needing company tonight too, though he'd never admit as much. He liked the Renji kid because Ikkaku did, and he liked Ikkaku because let's face it, who wouldn't? Yachiru was fooling around with the rest of the Division and Yumichika was standing by to get her in bed at an appropriate hour. **_How_** that was preferable to a party Kenpachi would never understand, but Yumichika had said something about the ugliness of sweaty ballsacks getting sozzled. Ah well, his loss.

C'mon, let's go. I'm talking to you as we head for Abarai Renji's abode, where Ishida Uryuu and he were getting ready for a good, good night.

The bell rung.

Renji pettily waved for Uryuu to get it.

And just who was it that stood on his doorstep?

Oh, you can wait to find out.

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

**Wait a good long while, too, because my classes start tomorrow and heaven only knows when I'll update next.  
**


	4. Thesis Two

**The Losing Side**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach. **

**A/N: This story got tricker with this chapter. D: I didn't take into consideration how hard it is to make crack sound rational. **

**Chapter 4:**_ Father's Destructive Passion, Thesis Two _**  
**

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

"The nice thing 'bout pessimism is how yer constantly being proven correct or pleasantly surprised."

"The irony of that statement is how optimistic a view on pessimism it is."

Madarame Ikkaku appraised Kuchiki Byakuya's passionless face and figured it was just unbelievably not worth it. He had met the 6th Division captain when he and Kenpachi had paused outside Renji's cottage to debate whether one dish of borscht was enough to gain entry for two people. Byakuya, who had brought a Kuchiki butler along bearing two baskets of libations, was promptly accosted by the belled cat captain and the butler relieved of a basket. Byakuya had borne the other basket himself and knocked upon his lieutenant's door, refusing to acknowledge the purloining prick grinning behind his back. Uryuu had let them all in and now they were scattered around Renji's living room on various cushions, snacking on goodies and swigging at their drinks.

"Abarai," Kenpachi fired at a merry Renji, "Are ya serious 'bout invitin' the freak?"

Byakuya stiffened slightly before remembering not all derogatory remarks made by Kenpachi were for him; some were reserved for the head of the Research Institution. His subordinate threw his ass down on a cushion next to the 11th's commander and frowned.

"He already said he was coming, cap'n. So there isn't much left for me to be serious about, y'know?"

"Che. Dunno what the hell you were thinkin'. Man's nuttier than a cashew and a pussy to go along with."

"You know, Zaraki?" Byakuya called out, leaving off butchering Ikkaku's brave attempts at bold speech, "They didn't allow the clinically insane to enter Gotei 13 before you arrived on the scene."

"Fuckin' pioneer, ain't I?" Kenpachi leered invulnerably back at the aristocrat, who turned his face away. Renji topped his class off and drank directly from the jug himself, swilling the contents around before finishing it off.

"What next? Uryuu, you up to makin' a few margaritas?"

"Marga...what?"

The redhead hauled the brunet to his feet and led him to the mini-bar. "They're the best. Lemme show ya."

000

Mayuri was fashionably late.

Kenpachi didn't get it, and was not appeased by the pastries he toted with him either.

"Fucking toilet seat-head, if you can't come on time don't come at all."

"Zaraki-taichou seems to be functioning normally," Mayuri thrust the bag of food at Renji, who'd opened the door for him, and felt the big guy's pulse. "Perhaps alcohol doesn't affect those already afflicted by minimal cognizant abilities? A theory well worth looking into should it apply to narcotics and sedatives."

Kenpachi wrenched his wrist away. "You are way too weird."

The blue haired scientist looked around him and nodded to the other men, all of whom were observing him with a wary, amused air save for Uryuu, who was still in the mini-bar mixing margaritas. Like that stopped him from shooting Mayuri a dirty glare when the man sat himself down on the cushion closest to the human. Kenpachi and Renji sat as well and the sweetmeats were distributed amongst them. Kuchiki Byakuya was the one with the balls to take the first bite; after keenly observing him for a minute to assure themselves that Mayuri hadn't slipped them experimental chemicals the rest followed suit.

Uryuu served the margaritas and very obviously passed over Mayuri. Renji raised an objection, but the mad scientist demurred.

"I intend to keep my wits about me in order to observe the male mind in comfortable company."

The man was insane, but at least he was entertaining. In a way. In a way that pissed off everybody. Did he seriously think any company that included himself could be considered comfortable? Ikkaku already had a look on his face that implied his evening would've been better spent sparring Tetsuzaemon from the 7th Division. Renji was worrying that his first party with Uryuu might turn out to be a dud. The Quincy sat next to the redhead, who shrugged and held Uryuu's hand in the air.

"To the guest! The first Quincy to pay a social visit to Seireitei!"

"Renji," Byakuya quietly shot him down, "That boy's grandfather was a friend of mine in his younger days."

"Cap'n?" Renji blinked. "You're shitting me."

The Kuchiki clan head raised an eyebrow to denote that he was no shitter, and Uryuu gaped. He'd known his grandfather had spent a lot of time in Soul Society working against the way shinigami treated the Quincy, but he hadn't imagined him to have made **_friends_**. Hot damn, was there no end to that man's awesomeness?

"You knew my grandfather?"

Byakuya nodded. "He was perhaps twenty or so. A lot of our views coincided. He stopped visiting as Seireitei's stance against the Quincy proved more stubborn than he'd thought. I was sorry to hear of his...misfortune." His eyes wouldn't slide to Mayuri's face, no, he was too good for that. And 'misfortune' was too good a word to describe what had been done to the man, but Uryuu didn't blame Byakuya for being delicate about it.

"So..." Renji cast around for safer waters to steer the topic into. "I heard this toilet joke from Tanaka of the 8th..."

"Kurotsuchi is a toilet joke," Kenpachi rumbled, shooting a candid glance at the quietly observing captain. "Why do you wear that thing, anyway?"

"I assure you it has nothing to do with any painfully unwitty puns you can devise regarding fecal matter," Mayuri sounded rather bored. "Is this really what men do once gathered? I feel like I'm wasting my evening..."

"Join the club," Ikkaku muttered darkly into his glass.

"...Nemu needs an upgrade I could be seeing to..."

"I'd upgrade to her any day," Ikkaku muttered again. Considering the pathetic quality of that slur, it was probably safe to assume his mutterings were more drunken than dark. Boredom kept him hitting the liquor harder than the others. Sitting around like this was no one's idea of a fun time, not among those gathered. Renji felt his future as an awesome host slipping away. And that's when he came to the questionable conclusion that to save the reputation he had yet to build, he needed to spike Kurotsuchi Mayuri's drink.

Thoroughly.

"Cap'n, have some tea," Renji shoved a glass at the man that had some of the happy drugs Yamada Hanatarou had left behind last month, when he'd visited the lieutenant at home to heal him. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but had the poor kid known Renji was going to abuse them this way he would've had a fit. Kurotsuchi Mayuri sniffed the concoction with a moderate level of paranoia; he didn't really expect the gorgeous haired vice-captain to have the scientific spirit nor intellect to try and poison him. He would bank on stupidity but Renji was the kind of stupid that liked to attack head-on. (And Retsu was the kind of girl who made her drugs undetectable precisely because she anticipated having to use them on Mayuri one day. When, you know. They finally wheeled him into her care for excessive creepiness.)

She had a whole ward reserved for the madman, but Mayuri who was as of now blissfully unaware of his eventual fate gulped down the green liquid with a satisfied smack of the lips.

"Observation must be thirsty work?" Renji asked cheerfully as he refilled the glass. Byakuya and Kenpachi were talking (that could be leading nowhere good) so he kept an ear out for signs of danger, but other than that he was solely focused on getting Mayuri high. He felt a twinge of regret as Ikkaku snorted at the attention being paid to the 12th's highest officer, but ignored it because he was fairly sure the bald man would enjoy Mayuri's disarmament as much as the next man.

Though seeing as how the next man was Uryuu, that assumption could well be called into question...

"That is incorrect. A simple-minded thought born of the apparent inability to distinguish between physical and mental exertion." Mayuri queerly surveyed Renji's reddening face. "And Kuchiki Byakuya **_chose _**you to be his lieutenant? ...Interesting."

"But, uh. Talking would dry out a man's tongue, right?"

"Perhaps. This tea is rather unusual," commented the freak Kenpachi so fondly reached out to cuff. Mayuri sputtered and grabbed the hilt of his sword.

"What is the meaning of this, Zaraki Kenpachi?"

"It means you're borin' me t'hell," the stone monolith replied, "Talk about somethin' I can understand."

"The effort involved in lowering my intelligence to your level might irreparably damage it," Mayuri loftily said. Byakuya closed his eyes and Renji beseechingly looked at him. The drug he'd been dosed with chose that exact moment to react to a poison he'd been trying on himself (merely to see if his body still responded the same way as Nemu's. Sometimes he needed to restock her with humanity...) and the happy drug became a fucking depressant. Mayuri struggled with a suddenly heavy-hearted feeling, immediately putting the tea glass down.

"I do, however, have one topic that might be something you can relate to," he nodded to Kenpachi, who seemed less than convinced. "Issues with progeny."

"What?"

"Children," Byakuya elucidated with a grimace. He and Hisana had never had any. Whoever said you couldn't miss what you didn't have? Byakuya missed fatherhood very much. Kenpachi blinked and looked extremely annoyed.

"I got no kids."

Mayuri wasn't really listening. "Nemu has recently been displaying that most unattractive of emotions. Every time I turn around she's ready with a question on Kurosaki Ichigo. It's disrupting the atmosphere in the lab. I'm this close," he put thumb and forefinger together, "To dismantling her."

Ikkaku studied the nonexistent space between his digits. "But that's..."

"Yes," Mayuri nodded, "I've already done it once. I'll probably do it again when I go home tonight." He frowned, studying Renji with accusation. "What did you put in my tea, you foolish man?"

"Absolutely nothing," Renji never missed a beat, "Have some borscht."

"Or these..." Kenpachi held up a packet of baked biscuits that were in one of Byakuya's baskets, "...uh, things I got. I made 'em m'self."

Byakuya sniffed disdainfully, desperate to roll his eyes but too unaffected to do so. Uryuu was still putting everything he had into denying Mayuri's existence. The company settled in to hear the fucker out.

"I made her because I needed her," complained Mayuri, "And that slut is developing her own **_personality_**? What am I to do when she copulates with the human; pander to a pregnant daughter's hormonal whims? Though I suppose I could make her sterile. The emotional baggage she's heaving is getting on my nerves, that's the root of the issue. I should wipe her mind clean. But what use is a robot to me; I made an independent being dependent on me precisely so that she would never betray me. Sharing her devotion with someone else was never part of my plan."

There was a pause.

"You're a sick bastard," Kenpachi informed him with relish. As if it needed pointing out. Ikkaku looked nonplussed by Mayuri's callous speech even though he'd heard some variation or the other before. He ventured forth with a tentative comment.

"Ain't Ichigo interested in Byakuya's sister?"

"Bloody brilliant," Mayuri shrieked, "Unrequited love! Oh, just the thing to keep her focus on science."

Uryuu and Renji looked sheepish, as if they'd been slacking off on their lives due to uncherished feelings too. Byakuya saved their sorry asses by swiveling the topic smoothly.

"Kurotsuchi-taichou, are you sure you're not feeling threatened by the loss of her attention?"

Mayuri snorted gently at him. "Isn't it obvious? Nemu is my most potent weapon. And the most convenient...if her priorities change it would be a great deal easier for an assassin to carry out his job and neutralize me."

"No one wants to kill you," Byakuya said placatingly, and Kenpachi had to laugh.

"Dunno what you're talkin' about, Kuchiki, I'd skewer the bastard if I thought the old gramps would let me get away with it."

"Can't you show respect to Yamamoto-dono at **_least,_**" Byakuya seethed, and Kenpachi just laughed again. Uryuu had a brilliant doubt that he put forth to Renji because he was so incredibly unwilling to speak to Mayuri, and the redhead frowned at how much sense it made as he voiced it.

"Why the hell did Nemu-san fall for _**Ichigo?**_ Has she ever been alone with him? In fact we all thought it was Uryuu she'd taken a liking to," Renji pointed, "The way she looks at him."

"She was built to look at everyone the exact same way," said Mayuri indifferently, "And as for developing feelings for the Kurosaki hero, well. Who says she needs to have had a one-on-one experience for that? The boy has shown enough dramatic examples of 'heroism' to sway most of Seireitei in his direction."

There was a fair, contemplative pause as they all recalled the Winter War and the substitute shinigami's pivotal role in it.

The scientific zealot took another swig of drink and muttered, "Of course the real heroes are us in the lab. But trust the administration to forget us. They look for fair faces first in their dash to award laurels. Achievements of significance come second."

"Jealous little shit, arencha, Kurotsuchi?" Kenpachi's unpleasant face looked pleasantly pleased by the fact.

"Of that brainless simian? Please."

Kenpachi grunted. "Whatever, I ain't gonna waste my time tryin' to make you see it. But you're damn right Ichigo's getting too popular for his own good." The Rukongai ruffian put down his glass with a threatening air (only Kenpachi, I swear) and looked askance at Ikkaku, who'd made a sound suspiciously reminiscent of a snicker.

"Somethin' in your throat, Ikkaku?"

"Yeah," his 3rd seat said hastily, "That's gotta be it, cap'n."

Kenpachi squinted in doubt but Ikkaku had his game face on. Butter wouldn't melt on his tongue et al. After a few minutes of this had attracted everyone else's attention, Byakuya patiently burst out (only Byakuya, I swear), "Are you going to tell us what this is all about?"

"Nothin'."

Uryuu raised his eyebrows. "You **_like_** Kurosaki. Why is he too popular for his good all of a sudden?"

"Perhaps," suggested Mayuri, "You find yourself under the same spell of jealousy that you accused me of."

"Yachiru," Kenpachi said abruptly, and then fell into quiet mutiny. It didn't last long. He equally abruptly said, "Thinks he's really cool." And then Ikkaku made that noise again. Kenpachi wasted no time in knocking his lights out; **_not _**that it took much considering all the drink the bald man recently imbibed. Nonetheless Renji shouted in alarm and fussed until Uryuu shoved Ikkaku's unconscious body out of their way.

Byakuya had to poke fun at the situation because, hello. This chance was too rare to be passed up.

"Well, well, well. And Unohana-san was telling me the other day you and Kurotsuchi would never be able to find anything in common."

"I didn't fuckin' make Yachiru, a'ight?" Kenpachi's discomfort was like ambrosia to the aristocrat's airy heart. "She's not my daughter or shit and I ain't got a problem with it. Just, you know. Ain't good for Ichigo to be so popular. He'd get a big head."

"Who, Zaraki? Who exactly do you think you're fooling?"

"Shut the hell up!"

Ikkaku came to his senses just as Byakuya opened his mouth to tell Kenpachi he would **_not_** shut up. They all turned to look at him, Renji offering him a draft of water to cool down. The skinhead took the story thread into his own hands and told it while Kenpachi growled adversely, to nobody's intimidation. They were so jaded these days, his subordinates and colleagues. He thought wistfully of the time when he could have them all pissing themselves with one irate glance and then thought he had better pay attention to his officer's words.

"It's like this." Ikkaku was addressing Renji alone, pretending like the rest of them weren't listening too. "Captain is bored half t'death and wants to go fight Ichigo. Kusajishi-fukutaichou makes a passin' comment about how she's a fan of the kid and likes him as much as she likes Byakush...ah," he suddenly decided, seeing the look in Byakuya's eyes, that he rather liked his afterlife, "Kuchiki-taichou. And Zaraki-taichou wants to know when this happened and she says it was when Ichigo was fightin' in Hueco Mundo. Cap'n figured it's only a matter of time before the lieutenant decides Ichigo is cooler than cap'n too, and starts mopin'."

"I wasn't fuckin' moping. Ikkaku, do you wanna die?"

"'Pologies, cap'n. 'Pologies."

"So," Byakuya said quietly, "Kurosaki Ichigo is really very popular."

Kenpachi snorted, unwilling to be drawn in and compromised any further than he already had. Mayuri, under the influence, glared with eerie control at Renji and muttered something dire about seeing to his body being sacrificed for science before falling over in a stupor. Ikkaku swore loudly and Byakuya sighed, rising to go fetch the blue haired man's daughter/lieutenant/miscellaneous. Uryuu, saturated with loathing, claimed he needed some fresh air and walked out with him. Renji saw the 11th Divisioners out and came back to find himself alone with a senseless scientist.

All in all?

A pretty bad night.

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

**Like I haven't told enough people already, I will now announce it to anyone who reads this: today in med school I met my first cadaver. :3  
**


	5. Rise and Shine

**The Losing Side**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach. **

**A/N: Everyone knows the screwdriver is a vodka drink and not a household tool, right? And anime watchers know nakama is the whole friend-beyond-friend trust thing? D: Sorry for asking such dumb questions. Moving on. A not-so-dumb question: zori are a type of footwear. Did you know that? Fantastic.  
**

**Chapter 5:**_ Rise and Shine_**  
**

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

Ryuuken couldn't really get used to Isshin being quiet. It messed with the balance of his world. Fish swam, birds flew, patients whined and Isshin heckled. I said **_heckled,_** never nonplussed. Ryuuken was now nonplussed. There was a mournful look on the brunet's brash face that usually only made an appearance around the anniversary of Misaki's death. Way too early in the year for it to be showing itself...

"What's gotten into you? Leaving your screwdriver unmolested. I should wheel you in for tests."

"Sorry, Ishida. Bad day, y'know?" Isshin shook himself as though dislodging sad thoughts from his waxy ears. "Had to explain to the old man running the inn just outside town (you know the one, the place where we got those eels the other month) that the reason his grandkid was...was different from the other kids was because the family had a habit of marrying cousins. He didn't see the problem at all. 'Just keeping the good blood in', he said, and I said 'well it's damn well gone bad now, you can believe me'." That was taboo for a practitioner, to snap at the client, and Ryuuken sort of blamed Isshin until the bastard went on to say all soft-like, "Are humans worth it, Ishida?"

An enormous silence.

Isshin had gotten his shinigami powers back, which meant he was free to go to Soul Society if he so chose. He wasn't Urahara Kisuke to have been banished and he wasn't a vaizard to be unwelcome. But he did have children who were alive, unlike his ancient soul that had long ago been freed from his body, and so he chose to loiter. He. Chose. Life. As a human.

Ryuuken was fairly certain he wasn't second-guessing himself now. Just anxious to be reassured that he wasn't wasting his time. Heaven knew being a doctor was no easy task; heaven knew Ryuuken had had his days of doubt. But then it was **_Isshin_** who made him believe and with **_Isshin _**in the same sticky spot the Quincy appreciated the knack of cheering people up/on that **_Isshin_** was good at and he himself, less adept at handling.

A story for a story, as any idiot will say.

"A few months ago," the white haired man murmured, "We had an old man in for trauma from injury. Car crash. Pitiable, but treatable. He couldn't afford it, though; just another homeless vagrant. The hospital board wanted him pulled from life support. And a young medico of mine...she must hardly be making enough to scrape by with tuition fees and all, but she gave everything she could spare to saving his life. Inspired by her passion and concerned for her finances, I took over the payment of bills. She was so enthralled with him. He was one of her first patients...you know how we used to get."

Oh, Isshin knew. Years ago, when they were young and dauntless living in Shanghai. He remembered the refusal to acknowledge a lost case, and the pain of getting attached to a doomed patient. He didn't see what Ryuuken was getting at though. Broken bones were a piece of cake, and if the medico was throwing her strength into it and Ryuuken his money and experience, what could've gone wrong?

"An unexpected complication." The man swallowed. "A clot we hadn't noticed in his brain. Killed him. Shame of my life. Disaster of hers. The girl had no relation at all to him, Kurosaki, but in a matter of days she'd built up a bond with him strong enough to send her over the edge when he went. But she was incredibly brave. Held his hand before he died, just after we'd noticed the clot and were wondering what to do about it...she knew he hadn't a chance in hell. And she sent him off nonetheless with a smile on her face."

The screwdriver fulfilled its destiny, sliding down Isshin's thirsty throat.

"Humans are damn well worth it. If you know where to look."

"What happened to the medico?"

"What happened? What ought to happen? She got on with her life."

"No paid leave for services rendered towards humanity; nothing?"

"Rewarding kindness only breeds insincerity and greed."

Such small examples of humor were usually much appreciated, but when the clearing of Isshin's face that Ryuuken expected didn't occur, he frowned over it.

"There's something else?"

"Ichigo's gone."

Ryuuken slammed his glass down and stormed out. Isshin followed swiftly, catching the bartender's eye as he did so. This was a regular haunt of theirs; they'd pay the bill the next time they came. Catching up to his seething pal, the shinigami threw a most unwelcome arm around his shoulder.

"Get that filthy limb **_off _**me. Making me spout such a sickeningly sweet anecdote thinking it would put that annoying spring back into your step only to let me know **_that wasn't what was bothering you_**. I should punch you."

The arm left him.

"You're such a good friend, Ishida."

"I'm not your friend at all, Kurosaki."

"Rukia-chan came and went this morning and Kon came down for lunch instead of my little boy. Kisuke says she heard Uryuu's staying in Soul Society and figured Ichigo would enjoy the trip as well. Now tell me that's not depressing."

"I see nothing wrong with it."

"Your son's not a big fan of mine," Isshin explained patiently, "And optimism is fabulous but let's face it. This weekend Ichigo's about to find out his _nakama_ hope he'll pack it in one of these days so that they can get the girls they want."

"How dare you. My son would **_never_**."

Isshin was unrepentant and placid. "You know your son. I know teenage boys."

Ryuuken slowed his pace. "He has other, more faithful friends. Your son is **_your_** son, after all. Nothing can possibly get him down."

But that wasn't true; plenty of things got Isshin down. He was just really freaking good at not showing it. Ryuuken wondered what to say and figured to hell with it, his bar buddy had gotten all the comfort he was going to get from him tonight. Isshin, evidently of the same opinion, clapped a hand on his colleague's shoulder again.

"A damn fine friend. Thanks, Ishida. I feel well enough to go take a bath with my babies tonight."

"You will not. You will **_not. _**Oh, leave those girls to have an unmarred childhood at least for the remaining years for which they will remain children."

"So you say wait till puberty really sinks in, huh?"

"Kurosaki, you are a **_terrible_** father."

000

Renji curled and uncurled in Uryuu's arms, remembering how un-fun it had been last night for the brunet. "'M s'rry," he murmured.

Uryuu said, "I forgive you." And then, "Why are you hugging me?"

Me, me! Pick me, I'll tell you~

Last night, after Kenpachi had left, Nemu had taken Mayuri away. Byakuya had gone home...but Uryuu came back to help Renji clean. Not that they'd gotten far; Ikkaku returned after dropping his captain home and brought Yumichika. For a change. For a touch of beauty. For insisting they leave Renji's place and trot over to the 9th Division, where poor Hisagi Shuuhei was still waiting on Matsumoto Rangiku's latest late report. The men tramped over to the 10th, drinking all the way, and broke down her doors demanding her attention on Shuuhei's behalf. The sleeping lieutenant woke to the smell of alcohol and joined them as they finished her work for her. Toshiro and Shuuhei would be horrified by the end results later; the group carried itself on slippery feet back to Renji's apartment because he had to...to...was it finish cleaning, or make a new mess? They'd picked option two because it was easier. And amidst the many strange things that happened, Renji winding up next to Uryuu was not very strange at all.

"Shit," Ikkaku was groaning as he woke up, five feet away from our embracing duo and two feet away from Shuuhei, "It seemed like a good idea at the time to get 'im outta that office, but...shit, what's the time?" It was afternoon, late afternoon, because they'd fallen asleep at dawn. "All the time he just lost, the way he'll be stressing it probably would've been kinder to let 'im stay in working all day."

Yumichika whined, "Ikkaku, you have the least lovely morning voice I had ever heard. Hush." And then he rolled over. Onto Rangiku, he presumed, since that's who he remembered gallivanting with last before he passed out, but she wasn't there. He looked blearily around for her.

"Yumi, it's afternoon, not morning. Shit," Ikkaku repeated, "Cap'n's reports are due. We gotta get 'im to sign 'em. Gotta get up, Yumichika...get up."

Yawning and stretching and scratching, the two walked out without so much as a good-bye to their hosts. Uryuu wiped the sleep out of his eyes and croaked, "We ought to awaken Hisagi-san."

"Poor bastard, let him sleep." Renji staggered towards the bathroom. "Hisagi-sempai's in for a helluva night when he opens his eyes. And I'm not too keen to be the one bringing him to it."

After a round of showering and sighing and breakfasting on bacon, they'd become conscious enough to notice how neat the apartment was for one that had been the scene of last night's unspeakable crimes, and also the backpack in the corner, with a note taped onto it. Hearts thudded as it was read aloud. Here's what it said:

_Renji, Ishida._

_Rukia brought me to Soul Society this morning, but as I got to your place, Renji, I saw Toshiro dragging Rangiku-san out. _And what a sight that must have been; they were sorry to have missed it. _Inside, you guys were hugging and stuff. Didn't know you were that close._ They could see the grin on his outstanding face as he looked down at them. _Regretted not having a camera and didn't want to bust the Kodak moment, so I cleaned a bit for you. _A bit? Good God, it was like the Kuchiki housekeeping had been through._ Got bored waiting for you to sleep it all off, what the hell were you doing last night? I'm going out to meet Rukia. Find me when you find this. _

_Ichigo._

"Why is he here?" Uryuu breathed, "Does it say?"

"You're looking at it with me," Renji snapped, "That's all there is."

They moved away from each other and picked at their empty plates, scared and irritated. Both men knew they hadn't done anything wrong; Ichigo couldn't peer into their minds and see the resentment of him they held there. But last night felt more like an Anti-Ichigo party than anything, and that was something to be ashamed of. Kurosaki Ichigo was a good man. That's what everyone told them. That's what they knew. That's what they hated.

"Why couldn't he just be a jackass?" Renji fumed, "Why couldn't he be a piece of scum? How come he gets the girl, gets the glory, gets us upset and has us feeling **_guilty _**to top it off?"

Uryuu stood, walked around the kitchenette, and sat back down on his stool at the counter. "If he was scum, Rukia-san would've been executed because he wouldn't have bothered coming to get her."

Renji wanted to passionately debate that and prove that **_no,_** if Kurosaki Ichigo had been scum and stayed home Rukia would've been rescued by other people but he knew that wasn't true. Jyuushiro had had a plan, yeah, and Shunsui had been rolling with it but like their mischief would've stopped Yamamoto Genryuusai from plucking Rukia out of their protective hands and throwing her off the plateau anyway? Face it. Ichigo busting his way in seeded doubt in Byakuya's heart and lent Renji the strength to find his bankai and also defy his master. Ichigo's antics had forced Aizen Sousuke to make his move (or maybe Sousuke planned that too) and shown Genryuusai that there was no need to execute the young wildflower.

No Ichigo, no Rukia.

"What about you?" he sulkily asked the Quincy, "Even if I'd lost Rukia," and he shuddered in lieu of touching wood, "Would Inoue have gotten a chance to get closer to him if he hadn't pulled her into the rescue team?"

"No one pulled her anywhere," Uryuu said, not happy about it, "She chose to go. Kurosaki never asked for help."

That was true. Ichigo was never one to assume himself as part of the gang, even with the gang he'd been a part of since middle school. (Poor, loser Keigo constantly trying to convince him otherwise. ...Good luck with that.) They remembered how they'd had to demonstrate on his oblivious ass when running off to rescue Orihime that **_no,_** he wasn't about to be allowed to do it alone. Ichigo was such a dumb little shit sometimes. Now by dropping in uninvited on Uryuu's visit, he was taking initiative for the first time in his life, taking it for granted that he was wanted.

Not for the first time in his life, he wasn't.

Ouch.

There's one way to break a heart.

Renji groaned loudly and dropped his face on his counter; Uryuu breathed quickly: out, in, out, in. Then the 6th's officer seemed to find fresh nerves of steel; he leaped to his feet and prowled around, grabbed his zanpakutou and waved it about.

Deciding on some conclusion, he said, "Damn it, that's enough. We're grown men, we can deal with this. Been through hell and back with the man, can't we face him for a day and a half? Two grown men against some shitty internal conflictions, huh! No contest."

"Yes," Uryuu colluded, "We lose badly. And what do you mean, 'grown'? At sixteen, I hardly qualify..."

"Have a spine," scolded Renji, the picture of a schoolmarm, "Emotionally. You've fought in a war!"

"I miss that. I miss being too busy to think about Kurosaki."

"You want another war? Don't let Ukitake-taichou catch you thinking that. He'll string you from the ceiling by your toes and preach the values of peace til you drop dead."

Chuckles of camaraderie, knowing that though they were ankle deep in shit they were ankle deep together. Friendship was so weird. Put two people in the same boat and the bonds that form between them are shocking in both their breadth and depth. They'd dealt with the Espada Szayel Apollo Grantz and being rescued by Kurotsuchi Mayuri. Hell damn they would deal with Kurosaki Ichigo hanging out with them. Just, excuse me. Who said they had to deal with it right now?

"We'll go see Kuchiki-taichou at his mansion."

"I don't see..."

"When Rukia comes up in his letter," explained Renji, "We obviously think to go look at her house. And when he's with Rukia, he obviously won't be at her house, under her big brother's nose. Only we didn't think of that. Get it?"

"I think so."

"For a smart guy you're incredibly stupid. Hurry, get your ass moving."

"And the rest of me is also invited, I presume?"

Well of course, sweet master, anything you like.

000

Kuchiki Byakuya said, "You needn't have bothered coming. I'm having everyone vacate the premises in order to purge the place. I have...some most..**_.persistent_**...pests."

It wasn't hard to see why the Shinigami Women's Association loved Byakuya's home. It was hard to see how they got away with it. Hard, unless you were like Renji and knew Byakuya's two greatest weaknesses formed the backbone of that society: Kusajishi Yachiru and Shihouin Yoruichi.

"Good grief, Byakuya-bo, it's not like you're wanting for empty rooms."

"And it's not as if you're wanting for a mansion yourself. Why can't these meetings take place at the Shihouin estate?"

"Byakushi~ don't be silly! Pretty Purple lets Wasp Lady use it for official business. Besides, her place don't got all the yummy snacks your cook makes for me!"

Byakuya closed his eyes, overcome by both the onslaught of nicknames and the revelation that his staff has been aiding the girl and her cohorts. The blame lay with him alone for telling them to always make guests comfortable, not that it comforted his poor fast-beating heart.

Renji knelt before his lord and declaimed, "We'll help, captain! Just tell us what to do and we'll carry out your orders."

Uryuu said, "Um, yes. How kind of you to volunteer on my behalf, Renji."

Byakuya told them there was no need, that it had all been settled. They wondered what that was supposed to be about, and then an extremely battle-ready Iba Tetsuzaemon showed himself with Madarame Ikkaku and Ayasegawa Yumichika in tow. The plan was, Tetsuzaemon explained in hushed tones, blah blah blah listen to the girls talk about the secrets of their soul and then use a series of clever underhanded tricks to ruin their night so thoroughly they would decide to ne'er again return to the Kuchiki manse.

An appreciative silence. Then Uryuu's tentative comment.

"The listening in on the secrets of their soul bit..."

"Absolutely vital."

Like, duh.

Within the hour, as the sun swung just below their line of vision and a silvery haze of fog threatened to blot out twilight, Rukia returned alone in order to convene with the rest of her ilk. She greeted first her big brother, then her madame president, and then had a chat with Renji.

"Ichigo was spotted by Unohana-taichou on our way back, and she took him away saying she wanted some data on his reiatsu." She rolled her blue eyes. "You know how it is."

Sure, Renji remembered Ichigo's reiatsu. Like the impending death of your best friend, or something. "He agreed?"

"She's persuasive. And she's not Kurotsuchi Mayuri. Ichigo trusts her."

Renji himself would trust any scientist (whether Urahara Kisuke or Unohana Retsu or Kurotsuchi Mayuri) as far as he could throw them: just far enough to keep the skin on his back and away from their dissection tables. Rukia waved at Uryuu, punched Renji's arm, and withdrew. Byakuya watched her go with misgiving.

"If she starts talking about Kurosaki Ichigo..."

"Captain, you're gonna listen in on 'em too?"

"It's my mansion, is it not?"

And his Yoruichi, his demon-cat, and his curiosity aching to know what she thought of him beyond her teasing. Did she regret, repent? Would she share with her companions her pain, his pain? Renji was about to speak, Uryuu was about to ask just how they intended to eavesdrop without being caught, but then Zaraki Kenpachi strode back onto the set, bold as life and twice as pissed.

"My lieutenant and my two supposedly trusty officers disappearin' on me in one evenin'! Fucking **_no,_** ya hear? Yumichika, Ikkaku! Get yer asses back to the office and forge my signatures on those papers Hitsugaya keeps shoving at me!"

"Zaraki," Byakuya was cold as he was cantankerous, "Mind your tone and your step and your god-awful breath when you trespass upon my territory."

"Whatever, princess."

"Excuse me, Kuchiki-taichou, I wonder if you have time to discuss business just now?"

Kenpachi and Byakuya stared at Mayuri's deathly face and wondered what sort of business he wanted to do. The blue haired beastie didn't leave them wondering for long. Nodding towards Renji, at whose elbow Uryuu had frozen, the 12th's commander said, "How much to sell your deputy to me?"

"What? _**What**_?"

Kenpachi quickly lost interest in the icky appetites of his not-friend and cast his eye around for his men. "Yumichika! Ikkaku!"

"O'er here, cap'n!"

"The hell have you been?" Kenpachi demanded, stomping over to them.

Yumichika met his advance by looking at the scene beyond him. "Why is Renji gawking like that, and why won't Kuchiki-taichou stop saying 'what'?"

Ikkaku and he listened keenly. Mayuri was now explaining, "When he led to my inebriation and incapacitation I swore I would, oh, what was the phrase, sacrifice his body for science. Yet the administration seems vehemently opposed to it. You're his superior, so you can very well order him to volunteer and he must comply. I will make it worth your while."

"You want to **_bribe_** me?"

"Don't look so appalled. We'll call it a token of appreciation to make it easier on your pride."

"Get out." Byakuya looked spitting mad. "I have work to do and you are obstructing my way by occupying my attention. Most undeservedly. Move aside, step away, Iba Tetsuzaemon, where are you?"

"Everything's ready," stated Tetsuzaemon, "Kuchiki-taichou, we're ready."

Ikkaku and Yumichika begged like children to be allowed to stay on, and Zaraki Kenpachi said, what the hell, might as well see what the princess's wine cellars are like. Mayuri followed, saying, I will stay on to persuade you after you have concluded your business, and Renji grew desperately worried that Byakuya didn't have an answering comment.

Uryuu smirked, "Let's go apeshit," and Renji rued the day he'd taken to augmenting his vocabulary with that word.

000

There was a false ceiling built into the Kuchiki manse. That had been put in place in the time of Kuchiki Ginrei, the current head of clan's grandfather. But what Ginrei never knew was, his grandson, needing a good place to sulk after losing to Shihouin Yoruichi at a game of tag, had made the false ceiling a haven for hiding children, with reiatsu buffers that prevented their presence spilling into others' awareness and also some damn comfy cushions. Byakuya sat on one now, between Renji and Yumichika, as the latter held open a stealthy kido window to view the room below and hear all that happened.

Rangiku was allowing Hinamori Momo to braid her hair, speaking at a break-neck pace about how hard she'd had to work to convince her captain to let her come to the evening's meeting even after last night's debacle. Yoruichi touched Rukia's fair cheek and asked, what, don't you use any foundation, and Rukia replied no, the powder irritates my skin. Yoruichi replied, I use mousse because it fills the pores and doesn't smear with sweat; I should give you some.

Rukia expressed her gratitude. Ikkaku expressed his boredom.

Renji looked around and saw that Uryuu, who'd excused himself a while ago to use the loo hadn't yet come back. Frowning, he left the little coven and wandered in the direction of the nearest lavatory. Passing one room, he heard voices. Peering in, he saw stars.

Kurotsuchi Mayuri was drunk again, this time with Zaraki Kenpachi, whining about what sounded like Unohana Retsu's snubbing of them both.

"Wait," Renji's nose fit finely into space where it wasn't really required, "I thought neither of you liked Unohana-taichou?"

"Don'tcha know adoration when y'see it?" Kenpachi waved him down, "The bitch is amazing. Looks at me like I'm the goo under her fancy lacquered _zori._ And I mean. If it wasn't for her and her pussy division half o' my men'd be dead. A woman like her, good to have her around. But does she ever drop by to threaten me with her eyes that she'll kill me on the operating table next time I'm on it if I don't start training my people in first aid givin'? No! Tell 'im, Kurotsuchi."

"One loathes **_that man_**," Urahara Kisuke is, after all, the only man for Kurotsuchi Mayuri, "For being so unbelievably high-handed. Arrogant. Unohana Retsu however makes a fine competitor. One's mind sharpens against competitors, you know. And the last time she's thought of a antidote to my poison? The zanpakutou rebellion! Ever since that **_boy_**," Kurosaki Ichigo, evidently, is the only boy for Kurotsuchi Mayuri, "Seized her fancy with his reiatsu and unreasonable abilities, she's been delegating to her lieutenant the job of keeping up with my advancements in technology. Delegated! Me! To a deputy!"

Recognizing the hullabaloo for what it was (god, Ichigo, how many men will you tick off?) Renji moved past to search for Uryuu. Mayuri continued.

"One would think, one has achieved enough to concern one's rival. But one only finds one merits no interest when compared to a oneling!"

"Who's gonna put me in my place now, huh?" howled Kenpachi, and they fell about like brothers, beckoning to one another in mutual empathy.

(Oh how ridiculous the word 'empathy' sounds when applied to a man who has no concept on how to treat conscientious beings and another man who loves conscientious beings for the screams they make. Men on whom the meaning of the word empathy is utterly and fantastically lost.)

Renji sought his house guest for a full half-hour before rushing to Byakuya's side, pale-faced with one motherfucking bitch of a conclusion.

"Uryuu's missing."

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x**


	6. Set and Sink

**The Losing Side**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach. **

**A/N: Kisuke's official title is tenchou, or store-owner. It's politesse, so learn it. Also, I apologize for the monstrous chapter that took a long time to come; thank you for your patience. **

**Chapter Six: **_Set and Sink _

**x.x.x.x.x.x**

Now it's time to slap a bitch.

Pardon my French, but you know how it is. And I'm sure you do. The first place to look upon finding your Quincy missing is _**Kurotsuchi Mayuri's**_ laboratory.

Nemu slapped Uryuu's cheek lightly, for reasons best known to her, as it did nothing to ease the effects of the tranquilizer she'd dosed him with before kidnapping him in the middle of relieving himself. That was the problem with genuine artificial people: they would never truly develop a sense of embarrassment, and therefore forever lack propriety. In any case, Uryuu quickly regained his senses once she shot an antidote to the tranquilizer into his vein.

"Good evening, Ishida-san. Are you having a pleasant stay in Soul Society?"

He stared at her. She waited politely for a response and when he didn't offer one, she slid a compact disk player (that's what it _**looked**_ like to Uryuu. But those things were all but obsolete on Earth and he didn't know what she meant to do with it) from her sash and held it forth until it popped open, a smooth life-sized hologram of Mayuri speaking to him.

"First of all let me disabuse you of the notion that I'm just a projection. The contraption Nemu holds is synched directly to my back-up brain which means I can be in the lab without being in the lab. This is not a recording. The second thing I am going to say to you is something that will dispel all those ridiculous thoughts floating around in your primitive brain that I have kidnapped you to 'finish the job' that I left undone at the time of our first battle. Make no mistake, Ishida-kun, what I am up to at the moment has nothing to do with you. Being as that may, it's hardly polite to keep you in the dark about why you are here." Mayuri took a dramatic pause. "I have a score to settle with Abarai-fukutaichou, do you recall?"

Something about Renji drugging Mayuri had pissed the blue haired man off…

"Of course I am not a stupid man. _**You **_know that. Mauling Abarai Renji would be such an incredible waste of time and talent. And then I would have to deal with his captain, and the appeal he will surely put to Yamamoto-soutaichou to relieve me of my duties here in the Research Institute." It wasn't the 12th Division Mayuri cared about, but Urahara Kisuke's baby that had become his own. "_**That man**_ may have instated this project but I have furthered it beyond his wildest dreams." Not really, on account of how Kisuke's _**mildest**_ dreams had spawned the Breakdown Sphere, and no one wanted to know what would come of the opposite end of the spectrum.

"I have taken you captive. Have you heard the story of the virgin who spent a night in a robbers' den? She came out the next morning and no one would believe in her chastity. It'll be the same way with you—I do not _**waste **_materials and you have nothing I need to study; I will not spend any resources on discomforting you for the bloody thrill of it. Merely taking you under my wing will convince the squads and the courts that humans are not safe in Soul Society. And indeed why should they be? What is this nonsensical traffic between the real world and the shinigami world? Absurd. It must be stopped. And it shall. I'm seeing to it right now, aren't I? Oh and if it means Abarai Renji loses your companionship and becomes utterly miserable, well isn't that just collateral damage."

"You cad," Uryuu was spitting angry, "You're like the Grinch, stealing Christmas!"

"Yes," Kurotsuchi Mayuri's phantom-self admitted, "But I assure you my heart will not be growing three times larger at the climax of this movie. Nemu, take him away."

000

Byakuya stood up and said, "What."

"Uryuu's missing!"

"How."

"I don't know!"

"When."

"I haven't seen him since he left to go to the loo!"

"Careless."

"Captain, it's your home."

Iba Tetsuzaemon, Ikkaku and Yumichika also stood up. Byakuya's neck was bent against the low ceiling and starting to hurt, but he had some explaining to do.

"Renji, you realize that if someone was abducted from my home, it would not go unnoticed? Uryuu must have wandered off the grounds."

"Without saying a word? Where would he go?" Renji was so frustrated, he could punch a wall. But he loved and respected his captain (like a bitch to her pimp! Or a guy to his brother. You pick) so he kept his hands to himself.

"Kurotsuchi Mayuri is downstairs," Byakuya said meaningfully, meaning where there's a bastard there can be a fight, and where there was a fight Uryuu can storm away.

"Getting drunk with Zaraki-taichou…"

Byakuya almost snapped, "What? I want to see," but this thing called sensitivity held him back. Renji was in pain. As a commanding officer, the dark haired lordy had to do something about it. If he could. If it was at all possible.

"Oi, Byakuya! What're you all guys doing cloistered up here like a chapel of nuns?"

Ichigo's wry voice and quirky comparison drifted along to Renji's ears like a poison needle, and Byakuya deduced that the urgency of him _**having to do something about it**_ just increased like, tenfold.

"Kurosaki Ichigo, what are you doing here?"

"Unohana-san finished her tests on me. Why," the orangutan (I will fucking refer to him in any which way I please), "Are Kenpachi and Kurotsuchi drinking together?"

"It's an abomination, isn't it," Renji valiantly agreed. It threw Byakuya off a bit. It took him a while to remember Renji had this cool way of forgetting how pissed he was at a guy when the need arose to work with him. And he might not have to collaborate with Ichigo now but it certainly wouldn't do shit to yell his disdain out for the boy to understand when there was a Quincy missing.

"Have you seen Uryuu?" Rukia's big brother said, and Rukia's boyfriend blinked because he hadn't quite been aware that Byakuya and his classmate were on first name terms.

"Nah. Why?"

They ignored him because it was the polite thing to do.

Iba Tetsuzaemon said, "Can Zaraki-taichou vouch for Kurotsuchi-taichou, so that we can eliminate him as a suspect?"

Ikkaku said, "Shouldn't we just trace his reiatsu and get it over with?"

Yumichika said, "Shouldn't we be quieter about it all?" because hello, hello, hello, how-low? Where were these men standing? In a false ceiling. Where was this false ceiling? Above a Shinigami Women's Association meeting. How had they avoided detection thus far? By concentrating all their awesomeness. Who was concentrating now?

Yoruichi was, as she heaved Yachiru onto her shoulders so that the girl could press one tiny ear against the ceiling and holler, "Byakushi, what 'choo doin' there?"

And every last man-jack in that den froze solid and fought the urge to wet himself.

Ise Nanao stood angrily, surprised that she couldn't feel her captain's reiatsu up there but more appalled for it. "Kuchiki-taichou,_** honestly**_? This is how you treat guests in your manse? For shame, the Kuchiki hospitality was so famed…"

No one could've stopped Byakuya from retorting through the wood panels, "You! Are! Not! Guests. Do not slander my hospitality while you sit upon the cushions my family provided and eat the food my cooks have slaved over."

Nanao continued, "And because we ate your food you expect us to sit and take your eavesdropping? Why, I feel violated."

Even Ichigo had to raise an eyebrow; none of them believed that a woman who survived day after day in Kyoraku Shunsui's company could ever feel violated by something like this. As Byakuya opened his mouth to convey the unanimous sentiment, Yoruichi beat him to speech.

"Byakuya-bo, this is weird. Could you please come down so we can talk it out like mature young adults?"

The word 'mature' coming from a woman like that would send lesser men twitching, but Kuchiki Byakuya, that slender willow of dignity and grace, coolly walked himself downwards and sideways where the members of the Association were piling out of their meeting room, Yachiru and Yoruichi leading them.

Predictably, the latter leapt for his throat. "Having a nice night?" her arms were bare and silken around his silk scarf. Her purple—mauve—(puce?) hair loose around her shoulders for once, tickling his nose, smelled like berries and summer nights. Her voice tingled in his ear. "Byakuya-bo."

"Demon cat, I have nothing to say to you." He pushed her aside with admirable ease, or maybe Yoruichi just made it easy for him. Turning to Yachiru he went, "No more meetings in my home."

"Whatever you say, Byakushi~" and she beckoned her comrades forward and told them in conspiratorial tones that the meeting was adjourned; they would convalesce again tomorrow. In the basement of the Kuchiki manse. What was the point of Byakuya even bothering?

Rukia waited for everyone to leave (Yoruichi pecked Byakuya's cheek before he could dodge; Yachiru whined for a kiss too and he had to bend to oblige her) before bowing deeply to her brother. Eavesdropping and such shenanigans be damned, a younger sibling never questioned an older sibling. Not in this house. And her name was _**Kuchiki **_Rukia, and she _**was**_ a member of this house.

"Nii-sama, is there anything you require of me?"

"No," he said, distracted by the impatience in Renji's face and the ghostly after-feel of lips on his cheeks.

"Then, I'm going to retire for the night."

"Alright, good night." He caught himself before he was distracted completely and bestowed his full and proper attention on her, his hand rising to hold her shoulder for a moment. "Sleep well, Rukia."

She bowed again, bade each of her brother's guests good night, cast a private look at Ichigo and sedately walked away. Renji wasn't so caught up in Uryuu's absence to not notice how he didn't merit a special farewell. He shot a brief, venomous glare at Ichigo; the kid wasn't paying attention to him because Ikkaku was talking.

"Yumichika 'n' Iba-san 'n' Renji 'n' I'll take the four directions of the compass and track the bugger down. Kuchiki-taichou, you rest easy."

"Rest easy?" the thought seemed utterly foreign to the brunet. "Kurotsuchi and Zaraki remain for me to rid myself of."

"Need some help?" Ichigo asked casually.

"What could you possibly offer?"

"All three of you kinda hate each other," Ichigo pointed out, "But I like all of you. I could keep things cool."

Byakuya turned to face him in frank astonishment. "Like…? Even Kurotsuchi Mayuri?"

And the insensitive prick said, "Sure, why not?"

"Because he's _**Kurotsuchi Mayuri**_. No one likes him."

"Don't be so weird, Byakuya," Ichigo gave him a stern look like he knew shit about weirdness, "Somebody's gotta like him. Isn't he a genius?"

"So?"

"Shut up," cheerfully Ichigo made his way to the door behind which they could hear Kenpachi's clangorous voice, "Nemu-san likes him."

"She was made that way. That girl is a robot."

"She's human!"

"Shinigami."

"Whatever," Ichigo dismissed the case, and Kenpachi staggered out, leaning heavily on Mayuri. The bona fide genius' face paint was smeared and his blue hair was loosened, clashing against the tan, unrobed shoulders of Zaraki Kenpachi. Ichigo ogled (boggled) at the spectacle they were making out of themselves, and especially the stench of alcohol wafting off them. Kenpachi's head lolled hither and thither before sighting Ichigo. He roared. Mayuri patted him consolingly and led him away. Ichigo turned to Byakuya to say, shouldn't we follow them and make sure they make it out of the gates instead of passing out in the garden, and found that Byakuya was still stuck on the previous topic.

"You didn't think it was _**whatever**_when you so proudly told the zanpakutou Muramasa you were human, not shinigami."

"I was fighting. He was being an ass. I had to say something! I chose that. It had a nice ring to it, huh?"

"Filthy hypocrite. And I'm supposed to wed my sister to you?"

"Whoa," Ichigo raised his palms, "Who's wedding whom? I'm not even seventeen."

"Then go date a woman your own age," Byakuya stalked off, following the two captains' reiatsu and the air soiled in their wake.

"Don't be that way… Byakuya!" Ichigo ran after him. "I came back here because I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Go on," Byakuya feigned caring.

"Unohana-san took me aside for tests on my reiatsu. She said it would help in her studies of why reiatsu levels are so diverse amongst shinigami; especially the branch dealing with investigating whether the sekiseki stone's draining property is inversely or directly proportional to—"

"I understand little of her experiments," righteous disgust and disinterest in such ignoble pursuits from a clan head left Ichigo reeling, "And care less. Does this bear relevance to me?"

They'd exited the house and were roaming the gardens, trailing the brunet's houseguests as they meandered through the flowers. Ichigo hurried to keep up.

"Yeah. Hang on. So she was poking and prodding and taking samples and making small talk—to make me feel better about the process I guess. But all her questions were about Rukia. Was I happy with her, when did we get together, when was our first ki—uh." He stopped to meet the glare Byakuya threw at him. "Stuff like that. I don't think she's happy about us. Just like you. And I wanted to know…has Unohana-san, I mean. Is she. Has she ever…"

"Stop your fidgeting." The lord of the Kuchiki house turned on him properly as Kenpachi and Mayuri left the premises safely. From the sound of it Retsu's interest in the boy was a little more than scientific. He hadn't really pegged her to exhibit such a lack of subtlety, but then no one who'd borne witness to his childhood days had pegged him to develop poise. "It's hardly becoming a war hero. But I suppose you really are just a human child…anyway. Ask me whatever it is _**quickly**_."

"Do we know Unohana-san's sexual preference?" Ichigo blurted out, "'Cause I think she's got crush on Rukia."

000

Renji whizzed around Seireitei a couple of times and then convened with his colleagues.

"There's no sign of him."

Tetsuzaemon looked disquieted by this turn of events. "None of us actually thought the boy was missing. This is starting to look serious; we ought to report it."

"Kuchiki-taichou already knows," Renji looked at him as if he were mad, "Uryuu's my guest and Kuchiki-taichou's my boss and he knows, so what's there to report?"

Ikkaku and Tetsuzaemon simply looked at him until he remembered the last time a human went missing on Seireitei's watch, but when the redhead didn't look like he was gonna get it Yumichika stepped in with a prompt. "Orihime-san…"

Oh, right. Inoue Orihime was threatened, coerced, and blackmailed into a betrayal that nearly resulted in the loss of the Winter War for Soul Society. All that while she'd been travelling the Severing World with an armed guard. And here Uryuu was missing all by himself in a city so big it could safely house both Kuchiki Byakuya and Zaraki Kenpachi, polar opposites and ruddy rivals. They might as well prepare the rescue party right now.

"We won't jump to conclusions," Renji said stubbornly, "This is peacetime."

"Tell that to our evening brawl parties," Ikkaku muttered, and they disbanded to do a second sweep of the city.

000

Urahara Kisuke was having a dull day.

Tessai could tell the boredom tugging his shoulders down from twenty paces. He'd learned to, because Kisuke never admitted to being bored and when Kisuke was bored he tended to work on some right undesirable projects. Think the Breakdown Sphere was crazy? You should've been there for the Self-Eating Soup incident. The things Tsukabishi Tessai had to put up with…

"Let's go to Soul Society, Tessai!"

The man who single-handedly saved the world most mornings just by denying Kisuke a second cup of coffee pulled on Jinta's collar to prevent him from beating Ururu with a stick.

"Uh, tenchou, how is that a good idea at all?"

"Because it's preferable to inventing Self-Eating Soup?" Jinta opined, unsolicited. Of course he was all for getting the store owner out of the store so that Tessai would be too busy to interfere with his poking Ururu.

"I thought we agreed to ne'er again speak of that," pouted Kisuke.

"Yes," Tessai acknowledged, "Jinta-dono, no dessert for you tonight. And tenchou, please be rational. Soul Society may have issued apology for mistakenly accusing us of grave crimes perpetrated by Aizen Sousuke, but they still think of you as the man who gave them Kurotsuchi Mayuri. We are not welcome there."

"This is a business trip! We have to pick up the new shipment of soul candy and other merchandise!"

"Why do we have to go there to pick up what gets smuggled to us," countered Tessai, "And why are we getting soul candy from Soul Society at all when we've been making it here ourselves for over a century!"

"Yoruichi-san and Ichigo and Ishida-kun are all in Soul Society. What prevents me from going just to say hello to my old friends?"

"You have no old friends there. And what would Hiyori think?" Tessai's trump card was always the standing of Kisuke in the eyes of his old lieutenant, "She wouldn't like it at all."

It was the wrong card to play. Kisuke's eyes went down, his fan came up. Hiding behind the trappings of mystery he mourned, "She doesn't like anything I do anymore, so this will be alright."

"Hmm?"

"Let's go to Soul Society."

"What do you mean, Hiyori doesn't like anything you do—"

"I'm going to Soul Society," Kisuke announced, and turned on his heel to fall into the underground training room and the gate to the other world there.

And because Tessai really wanted to know the deal with Hiyori, he followed. One hand still held Jinta who grabbed a fistful of Ururu's hair as they passed her and so the entire Urahara household entered the senkaimon to cross over.

000

As dawn broke over Seireitei, Ikkaku had the dour sort of misfortune that led him to be sniffing round the gates' hall when one of them opened grandly to reveal a dysfunctional family.

"Tenchou, please do not do that again. It's very inconvenient. Jinta-dono, why have you come along as well?"

"You're holding onto me, aren't you Tessai! …Hey Ururu! Stop squirming so much!"

"But Jinta-kun my hair—ow, ow, ow! Don't pull harder, no~"

"Hello," Kisuke said cheerfully to Ikkaku, exactly like a bad father and husband ignoring the embarrassing antics of his wife and kids when on vacation "Aren't you Madarame-san?"

Ikkaku's mouth opened wide and he filled his lungs up with spiritual stiffness to holler, "Intruders! Intruders in the city! Sound the goddamn alarm; I'm not in a mood to fight this freak—!"

Then Tessai gagged him. The Kido Corps' old captain still had a trick or two thousand up his sleeves. A cherry-red ball filled Ikkaku's mouth and black leather straps wrapped up his arms behind him so that he stumbled around for a few steps before toppling over.

"Arch," Kisuke approved, "My type of bondage, but I wish you hadn't chosen him to do it to. It doesn't go with the bald."

"It is not so much about choice as it is about lack thereof. Jinta-dono," the bespectacled homemaker growled, "I do not like the look in your eyes so desist from whatever thought is causing it. You are expressly prohibited to use this technique."

Kisuke went down on his haunches to converse with the fallen shinigami. Fanning himself foolishly to avoid leaking genius out of his face, he said, "Madarame-san, what is it about our arrival that inspired such a reaction? You were alright with us when part of Hitsugaya-taichou's reinforcement group…"

"Take the gag out before asking him questions!" Jinta shouted, and Tessai obeyed.

Ikkaku spat, "The timing of your arrival sucks! It's this kind of mindless popping in and out by living souls that—"

"Ahem," Kisuke said to remind Ikkaku not a single soul among them was to be considered living.

"Kisuke-san, now ain't the time for details! Lemme go. Uryuu's missin'."

Kisuke turned to Tessai with a wide smile to say, see, isn't it good that we came, and Tessai grimaced to show that no, no good would ever come of Urahara Kisuke trying to do anyone a good turn. He'd told Kuchiki Rukia he'd fixed her but had slipped her a little extra something for the road that instead of leading her to live a normal human life forever caused a normal human's somewhat spastic life to spiral out of control. Further back, he wooed Hiyori into being his lieutenant and look at her now! Was she adored and feared widely in Soul Society? No, she was a nameless entity banging around the mortal world with Hirako Shinji's troop of clowns waiting on Kisuke to do her a good turn that's actually good.

"Ikkaku-san, you should be glad we're here."

"Renji's gonna go ape-fucking-shit."

"Ah, the freeloader~ yes, we have definitely not missed him, right Tessai?"

"Jinta-dono! Please stop! Your foot _**will not**_ fit into Ururu's mouth!"

000

Kuchiki Byakuya had borne Kurosaki Ichigo's company for the night, both of them too wired to sleep in any case. He only stopped laughing at Ichigo when Ikkaku showed up with his worst nightmare. Urahara Kisuke was the annoying fuckstain that had gotten Yoruichi to trust him so much that even when the entire city said, 'You're a fuckstain!' Yoruichi had said, 'Yeah, right,' and rescued his undeserving ass without asking a single question. Urahara Kisuke was now tainting his mansion with children and an unduly large homemaker.

"Tsukabishi Tessai, at your service. Young Byakuya-kun, you have grown into quite the man! And have an incredibly charming laugh."

Chagrined Ichigo who still didn't see what was so funny about doubting Retsu's sexuality said, "Heh!" and Kuchiki Byakuya went a little pink in the face under twenty five layers of nobility and paleness.

"I heard you had a missing Quincy on your hands," Kisuke volunteered, "I came to help you find him! Have you looked in Mayuri-san's cells?"

"Kurotsuchi-taichou has an alibi," Byakuya said with distaste, "Do you? What reasons have you to enter the city?"

"None whatsoever," brightly blew his cover Kisuke, "I was only fooling around but I believe now I am allowed to. An apology was issued to me. I am no longer an enemy of the state~"

"Clemency was granted, as I see it. You are not free to come and go as you wish. You chose your exile."

"They call it having a change of heart or something—"

"Uryuu is not with Kurotsuchi Mayuri! Thank you for your help; you may go." Byakuya turned his back squarely on the shop owner, thinking to resume rubbing Ichigo's nose into the fact that he couldn't tell infatuation when it was taking a sample of semen from him, but Tetsuzaemon landed in his line of sight, followed by Renji and Yumichika, the lattermost of which looked at Ikkaku and huffed.

"If you were going to return to report, you could've taken us, Ikkaku!"

"It's not a report, Yumi! See these guys? They're really weird."

Yumichika was wildly distracted by Ururu's sweet face. "Oh! It's the beautiful little girl from that hideous shop! Come with me. We'll get breakfast. Yummy bread with grapes baked into its crystal sugar crust~ how attractive!"

And Jinta put a hand on Tessai's knee to stop him from bursting into tears at the insult to his hours of hard work poured into keeping that hideous shop spic and span.

Meanwhile, Kisuke was working his way into Byakuya's good graces. "Kurotsuchi Mayuri had an alibi, you say. What about his daughter, the effervescent Nemu?"

"What kind of adjective is _**effervescent **_for a girl like that," Ichigo inquisited.

"What about, also, that back-up brain of his in the lab? What, you didn't know about that? I told Commander-General so long ago! He didn't share with the rest of the captains?"

"Salt in the wound," Ikkaku muttered to Yumichika.

"I ask you again. Have Mayuri-san's cells been checked for Ishida Uryuu?"

"Slap in the face," Yumichika whispered to Ikkaku. Tetsuzaemon stood silent. The answer was, after all, a resounding no. Byakuya's shoulders sagged oh-so-slightly from defeat.

"Do you think if we walk into his Division asking to look around he would just let us?"

"Not at all, Byakuya-kun," Kisuke assured him, "After all, I know Mayuri-san much better than you do. We ought to pay him a visit not because he will return Ishida-kun to us peaceably but because we require evidence, fabricated or concrete, in order for Yamamoto-soutaichou to grant us a warrant to search to our heart's content."

000

"Massage, Ishida-san? Or would you prefer a cool drink?"

Uryuu hadn't been expecting this.

In a room with simulated walls that reflected a beach into his tanning face, Uryuu lay strapped to a chaise-longue, surrounded by an assortment of unseated shinigami in bathing suits. One of them, a buxom blonde, offered her hands while another busty babe that looked vaguely like Orihime offered a mai tai. Uryuu pressed his lips together hard enough to hold back even the 'no!' he'd been meaning to spit out.

There was nothing to learn from _**him,**_ but Nemu had efficiency built into her bones and was using her guest and/or prisoner to test out the new line of vacation rooms the Shinigami Women's Association had commissioned her to make. Her daddy had agreed to allow her project with the proviso that all the members of the SWA should donate some DNA to his labs.

The scene shifted around the Quincy; the chaise-longue morphed into a long couch in a Persian nightclub. Guns 'n' Roses, that old American rock band, blasted from the speakers and exotic beauties of both genders occupied the dance floor. The Orihime look-alike sat next to him, a Bloody Mary between her hands.

"Excuse me, Ishida-san, I wonder if you'd like to dance?"

Uryuu's lips were one hard straight line of agonized endurance.

000

Ikkaku and Yumichika excused themselves to go find their captain and help him with his hangover. Iba Tetsuzaemon too returned to his commanding officer—_**not**_ to take him for a walk, you cretins, I refuse to crack a canine joke—and Tessai stayed behind at the Kuchiki estate with the kids. So when Nemu authorized entry into the Research Institute for some visitors at lunchtime, it was only Byakuya, Ichigo, Renji and Kisuke that she authorized it for. As a dutiful member of the Gotei 13, she bowed and greeted the highest-ranking officer present.

"Kuchiki-taichou, how may I be of assistance?"

"Is your captain here, Kurotsuchi-fukutaichou?"

"Mayuri-sama is inebriated again," Nemu recited, "He is currently undergoing detoxification experiments. May I take a message?"

"We'll wait for him," Kisuke said warmly, "Meanwhile, it would be too nice to get a tour of this place. I want to see how he's been treating it…"

"Too nice?" Nemu misapprehended, "Very well; I shall refrain from showing you around."

Ichigo rolled his eyes and said, "Nemu-san, please do show us around. It was only a metaphor."

"Hyperbole," Kisuke corrected, but Ichigo was watching Nemu warily as she stepped closer, stared at him, and _**blushed**_.

"Nemu-san, are you alright?"

"Yes. Please follow me."

Byakuya said, "Renji and I will wait here," by which he really meant they would snoop around for stuff. The 12th's vice-captain nodded and led her love interest and her father's nemesis away.

"Quickly, captain," the redhead susurrated, "Grub around for clues!"

"Grub around?" Byakuya repeated, "I hope you aren't serious. We aren't going to find paw prints in his parlor, Renji. Come, follow me." He swished out of the 12th Division's guest receptacle to blaze his own path through the quagmire of queerness Mayuri had surrounded himself with. His myrmidon, unwilling to grub around on his own, was two steps behind as always. A few low-seated officers chivvied by them, apparently not noticing the duo of unauthorized personnel. Kuchiki Byakuya wasn't even trying to hide his reiatsu. Clearly, something fishy was going down.

"Captain."

"I know, Renji."

"Not really, sir. I need to pee."

"In the 12th Division? No, you don't."

Renji was about to contest his appeal when they passed a lavatory, from within which issued a beastly scream. Byakuya paused as a woman staggered out, holding her robes around her waist and dripping blood from between her legs.

"Cripes," someone called, "Looks like Raiha used the modified Western—who's on clean-up duty?"

Someone else called out, "Me!" and came to carry the woman away. Renji swallowed hard.

"I think my bladder just shriveled and died."

"Fantastic," his boss said, "Maybe now you won't take those twenty-minute potty breaks when on paperwork duty."

Who said the 6th Division's commander wasn't on top of things? Er, no one? Alright then, moving on. Next stop in the Kurotsuchi Mayuri House of Horrors—

"Are those _**tentacles**_?" Renji asked in fallen whispers as a writhing mass on a gurney was wheeled by, two attendants attempting to cover it with an insufficient drape. "Oh lord. Oh _**lord, **_when I was leaving the 5th Division Aizen offered to assign me to the 12th but I petitioned for a referral to the 6th—I could've…I could've—!"

Gripping his vice-captain's forearm to let him know that he could've, but he wasn't, Byakuya put Renji towards the wall as they walked down the corridor, like a mother wouldn't let a child walk on the road side. Ginrei's blueblood grandson then withdrew from his robes a visor that Renji had only ever worn before fighting Ichigo for the first time after his invading Seireitei.

"Put this on," he instructed, "And refrain from comment. You're making me nervous with your anxiety."

Who said the 6th Division's commander didn't give a damn about his subordinates? Renji, take it back…

Meanwhile, in Nemu's tour, Ichigo was bored.

"Hey, Urahara-san. If we know Uryuu's here, why aren't we just busting him out," he waved his sword arm for emphasis, "Bankai style?"

"Because, Kurosaki-kun, you're not an intruder seeking to stop an execution. You're a guest who's accusing one of the city's top brass of crimes everyone knows he commits but politely ignores. We need a little more subtlety. Some panache. Wait, I think Nemu-san is trying to communicate something."

"This is the lab where the experiment series 012-Q3 was conducted," Nemu said, "It is temporarily shut down while we steam vacuum the stains from the walls. Excuse me," she said to Ichigo, "Kurosaki-san, will you take off your pants?"

"What?" he appeared startled to say the least, "Why?"

"Just a random inquiry to ascertain that you are paying due attention," the girl said, "Also I would rather like that sight I think. Shall we move on?"

"Erm," Ichigo said, "Yes."

Kisuke had just formulated a despairing but appreciative comment on the changes (none very unexpected from the man who knew better than anyone what kind of sick fuck Mayuri was) his successor had wrought and was about to pass it when the successor in question stepped out of a door, naked but for a towel round his hips and blue hair dribbling water down his neck.

"Nemu! Get Akon to _**fix the damn hot water pipes.**_ Or I'll dissect you. But you're getting used to that, aren't you?" he noticed Kisuke. "What? What? _**What? **_You're kidding me."

"Hello, Mayuri-san," Kisuke trilled like he did, "Long time no see!"

Ichigo looked confused. "Wait, what? Where's Mayuri?"

"Here," Mayuri said, and Ichigo just boggled. "Oh. Uh. Sorry. I didn't think you were—"

"Human?" Kisuke suggested to fill in the frosty silence.

"Handsome," Ichigo concluded, unanticipated. Nemu smiled faintly and Mayuri scowled.

"Yes, it's a prerequisite to achieve the promotion to captain. Bankai is just an added bonus, to be honest. Nemu! You completely useless _**slut,**_ what is the matter with you? I had you programmed to reject _**that man's**_ spiritual signature with every fiber of your body! You ought to have exploded upon coming into contact with him, and instead you're leading him into our private domain! Worthless—shit!" he yelped as Ichigo yanked his towel off his body. "What the hell!"

"Fathers shouldn't talk like that to their daughters," the expert on familial relations explained to the worst egg of Gotei 13. Nemu had already begun to apologize and explain that the last time he had reconditioned her after cutting her up he'd forgotten to include all the anti-Urahara traps.

Kisuke was eyeing Mayuri's apparatus from behind his fan with some interest. "O-ho," he murmured, "So you didn't opt for enhancement after all."

000

In a whole other wing of the building, Byakuya said, "Renji, are you seeing this?"

Renji said, "No sir. The visor's blocking my view, and I'm kinda grateful for it."

He perused the file again. "Kurotsuchi Mayuri has conducted a study debating whether the perfume chosen by an individual handicapped of all senses but smell reflects their personality. Is this where the enormous budget of the 12th Division is being poured to?"

"Uh," the dearly beloved deputy didn't have any particular insight, "Um."

"Gentlemen," Mayuri announced, suddenly in the doorway, "That's quite enough wandering. I'm going to have to evict you."

"Before that," Byakuya said, quick to hide any reaction, "Why didn't anyone challenge our presence here?"

The neurotic tutted at his ignorance. "You think you're the first to try and pry into my secrets? Every week that fool Soifon sends a ninja brigade to crack my codes. My people have better things to do than run interference. My security squads are nearly autonomous, adept at making judgment calls when determining the chances of a threat penetrating our defenses."

"They let us in here and allowed us time to read this," Byakuya shook the file at Mayuri.

"That? That's an official document open to anyone who gives a damn about it. Even Soifon could walk in and read that. It's a venture backed by the 46 Council…when they were alive to back anything," Mayuri smiled broadly, to let them know that records of ventures not backed by his superiors were not going to be available to any of them in this life or the next or even the one after that.

Anyway, they were subsequently shut out of the Research Institute, and hustled out of the 12th Division grounds too.

"We learned nothing," Byakuya was somewhat disappointed, "No clue, nothing. Urahara, what have you got?"

"The freeloader seems to be stuck in his visor," Kisuke remarked, and Ichigo immediately set about tugging Renji free.

"Ow ow ow ow _**ow **_Ichigo leggo I'll do it my own damn self—"

"To soutaichou-sama," Kisuke cried, and Byakuya, foolishly believing the man had a well-thought-out plan, followed his lead without question. It was an error in judgment, but let's let him find that out in his own time.

000

Yamamoto Genryuusai-Shigekuni wasn't a bad guy. He was like a too-strict dad—his favorites knew how to handle him, as Jyuushiro and Shunsui often demonstrated, but everyone else was scared stiff of his presence and so couldn't begin to fathom that he was a person, not a pole that spanked them as a punishment for misconduct.

Still, that didn't mean you got a sugar daddy if you scratched him. (Hell, if you could get close enough to scratch him—if his flaming reiatsu didn't turn you to cinders—you probably didn't need a sugar daddy anyway.) He had his limits. He was a person, with likes and dislikes. And he really kinda disliked Ichigo, who had this freaking _**annoying**_ habit of inspiring rebellion and revealing faults in his troops.

It didn't help Byakuya's case that he was with Urahara Kisuke either. I mean the sheer number of times that guy had been hauled up to court in front of Genryuusai for obtuse shenanigans perpetrated at Yoruichi's behest or to allay Kuukaku's boredom was enough to damn him.

The guys stared at Genryuusai, each sweaty ballsack waiting for the other to speak up, and the scar-faced braid-bearded bald god breathed in their direction, his lieutenant at his side.

Sasakibe Chojiro said, "Ah, Urahara-kun, long time no see."

"It really has been," agreed Kisuke, "Coming like this on a social visit to Soul Society is just too fun~!"

"I hope," Genryuusai communicated, "that you haven't requested a meeting with me for social reasons? Because we are still trying to rebuild this city after the war—the war over _**your **_invention."

"C'mon, Yamamoto-dono," nervousness edged not at all into Kisuke's voice, who was accustomed to being scrutinized with displeasure, "You always told me I was going to achieve great things if I stopped fooling around so much. And I did, and the Breakdown Sphere was made! Is it my fault you didn't like what it did, or that Aizen did?"

All those present reacted to the name. It was a little too soon to be cracking jokes about the Winter War, with Momo still in the hospital and Hiyori still bleeding sometimes.

"What do you want," there was danger in Genryuusai's question, and Byakuya ran the risk of bearing its brunt when he answered.

"Yamamoto-dono, we paid a visit to the Research Institute today."

"And?" Genryuusai continued to keep his cold burning gaze fixed on Kisuke, who chortled.

"Mayuri-san's really turned the place round on its head! Why, I couldn't recognize my office at all, the lavatory fit so pleasantly into it!"

Renji snapped. "Tell the Commander what you found, Urahara-san!"

"What I found? Hmm." The shop starter, smartass, genius scientist sexual deviant (?) seemed to consider it at great length. "Nothing at all of pertinence. What could Abarai-kun be referring to?"

000

Ichigo, who'd stayed inauspiciously mum throughout the audience with the Captain-Commander was now missing.

Not that Byakuya or Renji cared.

"You fully embarrassed us in front of him! How's Kuchiki-taichou gonna hold his head up in the next captains' meeting?" Renji all but shouted outside the 1st Division offices, "How could you _**do **_that. You led us on! You had us thinking we were looking for clues to help find Uryuu at the Research Institute but it was all! Just! So that you could see your old lieutenant! Fucking _**hurts**_ to be used like that even by you."

"Renji," said Byakuya, "Leave that man be."

"Captain…!"

"Leave him be!" After a moment's struggle in the lambent setting sun, Byakuya composed himself. "I was a fool to trust in him in the first place. When has he ever done anything that I liked? That is the man who put Rukia in a defective gigai just to save his own sorry skin."

It was a waste of their time to even talk to him.

Renji gave him a last, disgusted look before striding after his captain, and Kisuke felt a twinge like he was about to lose the best freeloader/slave he ever had. He went after them.

"You must understand that Ishida-kun was never in any real danger!"

"HE IS IN DANGER RIGHT NOW!" Renji roared, turning furiously, "Kurotsuchi-taichou is doing god-knows-what to him right _**now!**_"

"He's not," Kisuke insisted, "I know Mayuri-san."

"Go marry him then, if you know him so well!"

"He's finished studying the Quincy! Why would he even bother studying Ishida-kun?" Kisuke rarely pled. He was pleading for their ears now. But their ears were occupied. A flare of fantastic reiatsu was soaring towards them, and they all knew what it was, and they could hardly believe—

"What's Ichigo doing!" Renji gasped, just as Ichigo landed mere yards away, shattering the concrete under his feet and releasing his bankai while he was at it.

"Yo," he greeted, and Uryuu stumbled away from him into Renji's waiting arms.

"Uryuu!" the redhead hollered into his face, "Are you okay?"

"A contusion or two," Uryuu admitted, "But that's because Kurosaki is so lousy at navigating tight turns. "

Byakuya walked to his plausible brother-in-law and tersely went, "What did you do?"

"He busted Ishida-kun out of there," Kisuke guessed, "Bankai style."

"Bang on," Ichigo beamed, "And guess what? I was so _**quiet **_about it. Like you said, Urahara-san! Subtle. Ask Uryuu! He didn't have a clue what was going on."

Ignoring this insinuation that he was a rather dumb fuck, Uryuu pushed aside Renji's concern with a faint smile and tetchily said to Byakuya, "I am going to file a lawsuit against that mad scientist. Or impeach him. Or whatever it is you do here. Because he shouldn't be allowed to do all this! It's ridiculous! There are even other choices now—" he pointed with some urgency at Kisuke, "Why does he get such special treatment? Do you know that the very first time I met him he had used his own subordinates as living bombs! _**Maniac.**_ And you, and your City of Tranquil Soul—you are to blame as well. You indulge him!"

Byakuya bowed his head and said, "I'm sorry."

Renji's heart skipped a beat and he immediately spoke up for his captain. "Uryuu! Don't be stupid—like Kuchiki-taichou has anything to do with any of this…"

"I'm not saying he does…!"

"Is anyone going to thank me?" Ichigo crossly asked. He wasn't normally the kind to seek gratitude after doing someone a favor, but these guys had just ignored him one times too many.

"I don't know what you're sayin', Uryuu; you want Kuchiki-taichou to apologize?"

"I want _**revenge! **_For myself, for my grandfather, for all my people! For everyone Kurotsuchi Mayuri has ever objectified!"

Kisuke said, slowly, thoughtfully, "Ishida-kun, how precise. There are _**other choices…**_alternatives to Mayuri-san."

They turned at him to tell him to shut up, but there was a look in his eyes that froze them all in their tracks. The blond's fan twitched and then he thrust it for Renji to catch while he himself caught Uryuu's hands between both his own.

"Ishida-kun, I beg you. Do not act against Mayuri-san."

"How dare you even _**ask**_—"

"Please, listen. I was there when they brought him into the Maggots' Nest. He wasn't fazed in the slightest. _**He had a plan to get out.**_ I could see genius lurking in his eyes. Genius will not be suppressed. I will not pretend I have no personal interest in the matter—he is my intellectual equivalent, and my old lieutenant, and in his hands alone can my Research Institute maintain its integrity. Humanitarian he may not be, but I would not see his happiness destroyed."

Uryuu looked rather taken aback that Mayuri was actually happy right now. It hadn't crossed his mind that the man was anything but sour. If this was Mayuri happy, what would he be like when he was locked up and away from all the trappings of his laboratories?

Brrr. Didn't really bear thinking about.

"Give me a month," Kisuke calculated, "I will draft legislature. Guidelines of morality he must adhere to if he doesn't want the Research Institute's Presidency taken away and given to…" he cast around for a name, "Rose. Otorobashi Rose. The vaizard! The whilom captain of the 3rd Division! Yes. A month. A month is enough for me to put him in check. Will you put your faith in me?"

And despite the fact that Kisuke had never given him reason to trust, Uryuu did.

The dream of Kurotsuchi Mayuri put on a leash was about to be realized!

"Well, alright," Uryuu said with only some dissatisfaction, "What's next?"

"The rest of the weekend!" enthused Renji, and everybody blinked.

"After a hellish day like this," Kisuke agreed, "A nice cold drink of sake might just be what the doctor ordered. Tessai serves beautifully, or we could go to a place in the Rukongai I know of—"

Byakuya, to Uryuu's gratitude, put his foot down. "Uryuu will retire with me to my home, where he will sleep safely before returning to the Living World first thing in the morning. Whenever he chooses to awake. Renji will also get some rest because tomorrow is a working day and I do not forgive slackers. You will take your children and your wife and lodge elsewhere."

"Wife," Kisuke said, "Children?"

"Shop help. And shop whelps."

"Ah, of course. I'll give Kuukaku-san a ring and see if she'll have us."

"Does she have a telephone," Renji curiously inquired.

"No," Kisuke said drolly, "I meant I'd make a present out of an honest-to-goodness semi-precious ring and persuade her to let us stay the night and maybe a few days after that."

"Whatever," snorted Ichigo, disgruntled at having spent the whole day away from Rukia, "I'm going home tonight itself. Ishida, I'll see you in class tomorrow I guess."

Renji and Uryuu looked at each other as the boy left them. The entire weekend had gone by and they hadn't even had time to properly resent his presence. They just hoped they wouldn't feel his absence—or ever be grateful that he hadn't the patience to wait for his betters and elders to make decisions on his behalf. After all, if it wasn't for Ichigo's hardheadedness, Uryuu would still be taking the wiles of a dozen comely holograms in stride.

"He did it again."

"Being a nice guy?"

"Yeah."

"What a douchebag."

**x.x.x.x.x.x**

**To Kenju, the anonymous reviewer (Nyuuu~ sign in D: ): Thanks for the idea about the summary~ that was good. Fits the title better. **

**I see where you're going, with the character filter thing. I thought about it too, when I was putting up chapter one. But I'm going to leave it as is because they're still the closest thing this fic has to main characters, and I can't keep switching around characters per chapter like I did with Exciting Proposal (man that was annoying -.-). Don't worry about readership; I've got you and that's good enough for me. **

**Everybody else, too~ fangirls especially. I'm grateful for every review and every hit. Thank you. But you should know: this ain't a RenjixUryuu yaoi fic (a warning this far in, I should be shot XD) and ain't gonna be. That would be, a whaddaya call it, a genre switch. I hate those. Except in King of Thorn! Fuck, I digressed.**

**Keep reading and telling me what you think, even if you're just gonna insist I throw Renji and Uryuu together (which I'm kinda wanting to do. In a different fic) because, hell, I like being read. **


	7. The Elephant in the Room

**The Losing Side**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach. **

**A/N: I never did get the grip I wanted on Kuukaku in this chapter. I plead guilty of all but abandoning this fic for a year; know only that it was never far from my mind. I never intended to quit on it. **

**-jii is a suffix that means 'grandfather' and is used for significantly older men. It's kinda a disrespectful way to be addressing Genryuusai, though. **

**x.x.x.x.x.x**

A man had once been confronted with the might of his own intelligence, and he had tried to use it to right every wrong in the world.

It hadn't really worked out; now Urahara Kisuke was on vacation for as long as needed to regain his nerve and jerk about once more with the strings of reality.

Dawn had just broken dreamily over the treetops. Having been rained heavily on the night before, the grassy clearing around the Shiba house was slick and muddy. A man and a woman sat in front of a house in wicker chairs, the former's sandals planted firmly in the muck and the latter's legs drawn up to her admirable bust. Everyone else—Tessai, Jinta, Ururu, Ganjyu, Kuukaku's servants Kuro-and-Shiro-hagenehiko—was abed at this hour, though the last two would be rising soon in order to begin cooking.

Kuukaku examined the ring on her one hand and said, "You think it looks better on my index?"

"Ah~ It would look pretty no matter how Kuukaku-san wore it," Kisuke smiled.

"Eh? So it's a ring so pretty that even my one-armed hideousness can't blight it, huh?" Kuukaku threw; the crown-shaped bauble smacked Kisuke in the forehead and left a red mark.

"Misunderstood."

"Mistake!" Kuukaku launched herself at him; just the three limbs were more than enough to straddle his lap and fishhook his mouth. "Say you're sorry!" she chanted, "Sorry! Sorry!"

"Saa—s'ry!" squawked the poor guy back at her. The brunette removed her dirty fingers from his piehole and Kisuke sputtered, trying to get rid of the salty-bitter taste of whatever she'd been dipping into. Occupying the wicker seat with the wicked scientist, Kuukaku curled a leg around him and grinned.

"Just like old times, isn't it? You existing, me annoyed by the very fact of it. All we need is Yoruichi to show up and strip."

"She only ever did that once."

"How come you never came to see me, Kisuke? You and Yoruichi. So Yamamoto threw you out—so what? So you forget about me? What am I, a third wheel?"

"Yes," soothed Kisuke, "But the third wheel that leads the two of us."

"I've missed those weird compliments of yours."

"I've missed you, Kuukaku-san."

"Then you should've come to see me! You weren't even there when our big brother died."

Kisuke gripped her waist and fell face first into her cleavage. "I didn't regret leaving Soul Society until I heard the news. At least Yoruichi-san visited you…"

Kuukaku ran her hands through his hat hair. "For only a day. She was being chased, as usual. It cheered me up, but Yoruichi isn't you."

"Were she here, she would say, 'thank goodness'."

"Even after the war was over and you were acquitted it took you till now to make your way to me. What, couldn't bear tearing yourself away from that young lieutenant of yours? I heard she and her ilk decided to stick around on dear planet Earth for a while longer."

Kisuke's head dipped in shame, or something. Shame? No way, this man was shameless. Kuukaku tilted her head, smelling a secret.

"Kisuke? For fuck's sake. Are you in love?"

"I have work," he admitted instead, "I agreed to write up an agreement that greatly restricts Mayuri from doing exactly as he pleases. It's for the sake of improving relations between the Quincy people and shinigami."

"Why is it never a simple tree house with you? Why are your projects so huge?"

"Will you help me?"

"Why do you even have to ask?"

000

The current avatar of the Shiba home looked like this: a low roofed cottage with a thirty foot tall chrysanthemum arching over its left side, while an enormous bee nosed in from the right, flying a banner on its stinger that proclaimed the place 'Property of the Hottest Ass in the West Rukongai'. Presumably it was not talking about Ganjyu.

How long had it been since Kisuke last walked these halls? A hundred years and then some. Before he'd asked Hiyori to go investigate the horrible Rukongai disappearances, he'd spent a night at Kuukaku's, eating the meal Kaien had cooked and changing Ganjyu's nappy when Yoruichi refused to take her turn at it. Shiba Kaien was everyone's big brother. Shiba Kuukaku was everyone's big sister. Kisuke had spent so much of his childhood here, and so many happy memories were etched into the stones that simply being back in Kuukaku's house put him almost entirely at ease.

"Alright, these are about all of them I guess." Kuukaku directed Shirohagenehiko and Kurohagenehiko to deposit the tomes on legalities within Seireitei on the table at which Kisuke waited. "You can skim through those," she pointed out two horrifying volumes, "and glean how to go about making amends to a law. This series," she tapped a jumble of smaller books, "Deals with restrictions placed on captains as deemed necessary under extenuating circumstances. What? I don't know what it means—but I can tell you do. Yeah, that's your roundabout language, isn't it?"

Kisuke grinned in a sham of an expression. "I'll never repay you."

"When have you ever?" she questioned. Settling into a pile of cushions, her lithe legs folded under her, she queried again: "Smoke?"

"Ah…alright."

Shirohagenehiko set up a waterpipe for them, and they took turns puffing. Soon the room was suffused with sweet transparent smoke, and Kisuke took a deep breath of it before plunging into his works.

"You wanna open your mouth?" she said after a while.

"Your books have been kept in impeccable condition. I wish I could teach Jinta how to maintain our library at home like this…"

"Home?" Kuukaku rolled her eyes at him. "That store you manage isn't home, Kisuke. Soul Society is home."

He stopped scratching at paper to look surprised, then abashed. "I guess I've gotten used to living there."

"More than a hundred years…"

"Each year a day."

"That's because you smoke so much goddamn weed," snorted Kuukaku. "Time passed normally for us. What did you do when Yoruichi wasn't around? According to her you sat and pined for her golden company."

"Yoruichi-san has the gift of a wonderful, cork-screwed perspective."

"She does have a way of making the world revolve around her," agreed Kuukaku. "A _**hundred**_ years. Ganjyu grew up while you were gone, but you haven't changed down to the last iota of insanity nestling in your brain."

"You have." The blond's gaze lingered on her bandages, her stump of an arm.

"Good or bad," a dangerous edge crept into her voice.

Kisuke gave her his most winning smile. "You've changed in imperceptible ways that only complement your loveliness. To this humble, handsome shopkeeper no one's beauty can outmatch yours."

"Except Hiyori's?"

Shiba Kuukaku was a queen in the least queer sense of the word, and part of her demesne was Kisuke's head. Dozens of years in his company had made her wise to his ways and if this man had a flight of fancy, she knew about it. She had long since made it her business to know, because it wasn't like he would ever tell. For his part, Kisuke could tell when a full confession was called for.

"She trained Kurosaki-san to rein in his hollow and might have fallen in love with him in the process." His fingers twitched. "She won't let me know for sure."

"Did you ask her, or try to dissect her brain and look for traces of endorphin release when memory centers storing his details were stimulated?"

He blinked.

"The look on your face." Kuukaku guffawed. "Yeah, isn't that what you tried to do to—"

"I asked," said Kisuke in a rush, as if covering up some hideous crime from his murky past. "She responded, as is her custom, with undue passion."

"I feel a migraine coming on. A boot to the head, is that it?"

He feigned interest—or maybe it was genuine—in some element of legislature. The dark haired doyenne donned a demeaning demeanor. "And you immediately started mooning after her when you were on the cusp of losing her to a kid a pitiable fraction of your age? Nice."

A sulk, if such a thing wasn't too bizarre from him. "I used to be of relevance to her. Now next to Kurosaki-san all matters are paltry. She was the only one from my division in the world of the living, and suddenly there was no one to care what I brought to life in my lab except Tessai, who only meddles to uphold the moral high end of our partnership."

Kuukaku took a long drag at the waterpipe. "Is her boyfriend whining the same way you are?"

"Hirako-san is not her boyfriend."

"Heh. But there's _**something**_ there…"

"He hasn't shared any concerns with me."

"Maybe there's nothing to be concerned about."

A sudden aggravation entered his face. "You don't know, Kuukaku-san, you haven't seen how he's become. A handsome young man, capable of infinite bravery and sacrifice. The hero of the Winter War, afflicted by tragic circumstances and yet attempting to overcome everything for the sake of his bonds. What's not to admire? Hiyori isn't to blame. I think I'm jealous."

Kuukaku threw a pillow at him.

"Ouch."

"Of a seventeen year old human, Kisuke please. You're seriously embarrassing me. Ichigo's become a chick magnet, well fine. Ultimately though only _**one**_ woman's getting a piece of him. Do you think Hiyori will be it?"

"At the moment he's courting Kuchiki-san."

"If he ever wises up to how much more tail he can get, would he dump her for the chance to mess around?"

"…I don't know. My current beliefs wouldn't expect something like that from him, but the mind of a boy is after all prone to change."

"Even if he does, that's a huge turn-off for women like me."

He shot a sharp, scandalized glance at her.

"Hahaha, not that I'd run after a kid like him that's younger than Ganjyu. But the way you describe him, it's like everyone's falling in love with him."

"It is."

"Any guys so far?"

"I assume it only a matter of time."

Kuukaku grunted. Kurohagenehiko came and took the waterpipe away. She strode over to Kisuke's table and sat on a book, ignoring his wince of protest. They looked each other in the eyes, the two birds of a feather.

"Tell you what. If he does start playing around, we'll…teach him not to."

Her school had only one lesson plan, and it involved the sole of her foot getting acquainted with the back of the pupil's head.

"Lest, y'know. I end up in the same boat you're in."

Kisuke blinked.

"You're joking, Kuukaku-san."

"Ganjyu has an over-the-top boar-riding bandit shtick but I can't help but wonder when he's hit a century without bringing a girl home."

"And you think _**Kurosaki Ichigo**_—"

"Could be the reason. Anyway. If you want the girl, go tell her about the boner you have for her. If you want to wait out her crush, sit with you balls between your legs. That's my advice."

"Pithy as ever it is."

000

Outside, Ganjyu was giving a shot at babysitting. As if Ururu and Jinta needed it in any conventional sense; he was just taking responsibility for their actions away from Tessai for a while. The mustachioed man was seated cross-legged on the grass behind the house while his…progeny…gamboled with Kuukaku's brother.

"You throw one leg over, brat, one leg. Jeez, how hard can it be to ride a boar?"

"Shut up, banana-head! It's harder than it looks because I ain't as fat and tall as you!"

"It's a _**bandana**_, freeloader, and you'll never be as tall as me if you don't get some exercise."

Jinta stared. "Did you just call me a freeloader?"

The youngest in the Shiba family was delighted to have found the perfect insult to offend the boy's budding sensibility. "Since you and your dad and dad are _**freeloading**_, that's what I'll call you, _**freeloader**_."

Jinta roared, "The storeowner ain't my dad, moron!"

Ururu said, "But if they made us, then aren't we their children?"

"My, my." The storeowner came out of the shadows that weren't actually there and sat next to his housemate. "What's going on here?"

"Karmic retribution, I think. It's nice not having to cook, Kisuke. Thank you for the vacation."

The scientist hid his face under his hat as his child-sized laborers ran up to him. "Anytime, Tessai."

"Storeowner, can I bring home a boar?"

"Kisuke-san, are we a family?"

Their questions begged to be answered, and Kisuke had half-formed twisted responses when he half-laughed at his situation. Hiyori or not, he was quite happy. Quite happy.

**x.x.x.x.x.x**

**This is definitely a chapter I wrote to get it out of the way; to make sense of the hints about Hiyori I dropped in the last chapter. The next one will be more gratuitously placed in continuity. Hopefully it'll be funnier and more satisfactory for us all~ though I really had fun making fun of Kisuke and Tessai's domesticity. **

**If you're still with me, thank you. **


	8. Lesbihonest

**The Losing Side**

**A/N: I think after banding together against Aizen, these guys can stand to be on a first name basis with each other. Except for Mizuiro; he's simply cold that way. **

**Chapter Eight: **_Lesbihonest _

**x.x.x.x.x.x**

Chizuru watched silently as the princess wept, coldness in her heart towards the man that was the cause of her tears. Arisawa Tatsuki had deigned to let her attend the slumber party at Orihime's house tonight without knowing what thorns were pricking her best friend's tender heart. Orihime had succumbed to sorrows and insecurities in front of her anyway, and Chizuru was watching a side of her she had hardly had a glimpse of.

The woman she loved cried like a lost child, and Honsho Chizuru could only curl her hand into a fist and curse to herself.

000

"Tatsuki, wait!"

The sprinting darkness—a flash of white shirt notwithstanding—hardly paused except to twist its neck around and hiss for silence. Stumbling down the street, the girl lurched to a halt under a streetlight in a pool of gold, a nighttime breeze twisting around her sweatpants. Her piceous hair was damp with sweat; her eyes were as hard as porphyry. Behind her were two boys, one holding the other's hand and having apparently dragged him along for the run.

Mizuiro broke Keigo's hold on him. "Arisawa-san, what exactly are you running from?"

The black belted bone breaker took a moment to pivot on one foot, run a hand through her hair, and eye them both. "What are you guys doing out so late at night?"

Keigo caught his breath and burst out, "We asked first!"

Making an annoyed noise, Tatsuki tapped her foot against the asphalt. "I'm running _**to**_ Ichigo's house. To, you know. Kick the living shit out of him."

Keigo and Mizuiro traded glances and looked at her for further explanation. Apparently unwilling to give it, she walked on down the street with long, purposeful strides. They had trouble keeping up.

"Anyway, Arisawa-san…Asano-san took me out to distract me from the miseries of my philandering life," Mizuiro said pleasantly.

"Did I ask?"

"Yes. Yes you did."

"Oh."

Asano Keigo, Kojima Mizuiro had once bragged to a complete stranger called Kurosaki Ichigo, was a smart guy even if his grades weren't good, and a much nicer person than the lady-killer. Asano Keigo brushed a hand across his forehead and stared at her until he ran into a pole.

Tatsuki waited patiently for Mizuiro to help the man up.

"Aren't you a little too young to not watch where you're going?"

"Aren't you going to tell us how you got drunk and angry at Ichigo?"

"I'm not drunk."

"We have noses, Arisawa-san." And Mizuiro tapped his to make sure she understood. "You reek. No offense meant, ma'am."

Keigo threw him an irate scowl, but kept otherwise mum on his classmate's gratuitous use of politesse.

Tatsuki swayed, and steadied herself, and stalked past them. The buddies exchanged another pair of meaningful looks before catching up to her. They would grab her by the arms for support, but she was karate club captain and nearly the champion of the world and would likely crack their heads for their kindness. Instead, Keigo took his turn to bug her.

"Tatsuki, Tatsuki. What are you doing out so late?"

"Orihime's crying," Tatsuki said matter-of-factly. Suddenly, they knew precisely what was happening tonight. When Orihime cried, Tatsuki shed blood. And, since a year or so, when Orihime cried…it was Ichigo's fault.

Tatsuki rolled up the sleeves she didn't have and practiced a roundhouse kick for a warm-up. She forgot to put the kicking foot down, stumbled, staggered, and slumped to the ground.

Keigo squatted beside her and Mizuiro bent over her.

"Arisawa-san, have you never been drunk before?"

"No."

"Would you like a piggy-back ride?"

She considered it. "To Ichigo's house?"

"Where ever you like, ma'am!"

"Okay."

Kojima Mizuiro made a grand gesture and said: "Asano-san, the lady needs help."

"Don't just volunteer me for stuff!" his bro, his Broceidon, king of the broceans, snapped. Mizuiro just smiled happily. Keigo hauled Tatsuki onto his back and gripped her buttocks firmly.

She tightened her arms around his neck. "If I feel you squeeze, you're a dead man."

A tipsy dragon is still a dragon. Keigo led the way, and Mizuiro fell in two steps behind him, talking to Tatsuki all the while.

"Were you at Inoue-san's house? Did you decide to drink tonight together? What was the occasion?"

"Her big brother's birthday…I figured it was about time…she's a _**woman**_ now, and men are gonna try and get her drunk…" Tatsuki yawned. Keigo felt it on his cheek and his neck and shuddered slightly. "She's gotta learn to handle her drink."

"And how would you say you're handling your drink?"

Keigo laughed at the question, and she kicked him in the side. "Faster, dammit! We're gonna miss him at this rate!"

Wincing, the brown-haired steed continued to shuffle along. "Where's he gonna go? It's, what—two in the morning? Three?"

"One thirty, Asano-san."

"Don't call me that! And still? It feels like much later." Keigo yawned too, and Tatsuki yawned again, and Mizuiro was impressively impervious to the urge.

000

"Chizuru-chan," Orihime said after a while, "I'm sorry to be such lousy company."

It was just a little past the point the bespectacled girl was willing to bear. She lurched to her feet, thrust a hand for Orihime to take, and took her to the bathroom.

"Wash your face, princess. Wash your face before Arisawa comes back and kills me because she's too drunk to remember why you're crying. Wash your face and let's drink beer and eat bananas with potato chips and ketchup."

Orihime hiccupped and smiled. "You're very sweet, Chizuru-chan." Orihime sobered. "I'm sorry Tatsuki-chan isn't nice to you." Orihime threw her arms around her classmate. "Will you forgive us both?"

Chizuru patted her awkwardly on the shoulders. She might seize the chance to grope the girl, but it would be too low of her to try anything now. Tatsuki wasn't here to present a challenge, and Orihime was vulnerable as a kitten.

"She's nice to you, princess. That's enough for me."

Orihime let her go and turned to the sink. Chizuru closed the door and turned to the kitchen. There wasn't much she could do for the girl who had too many people who cared for her, but she could do this much. She could support her for the night.

000

They were rounding a corner close to the Kurosaki residence when Tatsuki spoke up again.

"Mizuiro." He looked at Keigo in response to his given name for a split second before sliding his eyes to the one who'd actually said it. "Your philandering life is miserable?"

"Oh, it's much better now. Misery was back before I met Kurosaki-san. Before Asano-san did something to me."

"Don't say it like that! She's gonna think of something weird. Why are you telling her this?"

"She'll never remember," the brunet said quietly. His rowan-eyed rowan-haired friend grunted with the exertion of keeping the girl on his back.

"What did I ever do to you?"

"Something wonderful, Asano-san." Mizuiro smiled. Tatsuki smiled too.

"I did something wonderful for Orihime too. I'm not bragging; she told me that. I gave her courage, and a place to come back to."

"That's very nice, Tatsuki. We're at Ichigo's house."

She shoved herself off, falling to the ground and propelling Keigo into a bush while she was at it. And from her prone position she snarled at the sky:

"You're a dead man, Kurosaki! Come out, you son of a gun!"

Lights came on in the house in front of them and a sleepy little girl stuck her head out of the window. "Who's there?"

Downstairs a hairy old man stuck his face out the window. "Leave me alone, I don't want to fight!"

Next to the little girl's room no light came on; no one awoke. Keigo and Mizuiro looked to Tatsuki, who looked at Isshin.

"Kurosaki-papa, where's your son?"

"Sleeping over somewhere else," the man replied. It was still the weekend; Ichigo and Uryuu were still in Soul Society and it was still unacceptable to be declaring weird shit like that to the night. What would the neighbors think? How much worse could their opinion of the Kurosaki household get?

Karin tugged Yuzu aside and stared down. "Tatsuki-chan, what's the matter with you?"

"I'm drunk," Tatsuki confessed cheerfully.

"I'm opening the door," said Isshin, "Come inside. All of you."

000

Kurosaki Isshin was a cool dad to anyone whose dad he was not, and Yuzu. He made the boys cups of delicious, delicious coffee and set out platters of leftovers. Tatsuki got a nice jug of water to help her sober down. Then he went upstairs and told Yuzu a second bedtime story that Karin thought was unnecessary ("We're not _**five**_, old man!") and took a long piss. He went into Ichigo's bedroom where Kon was staring wide-eyed and awake and asked him if he wanted to come down and talk to the other young people. Kon began to fabricate an excuse to not—and then realized he didn't have to.

"Hi, Tatsuki-chan," said Kon brightly as he walked into the room. The girl stood and pointed an outraged finger at the figure of her childhood friend.

"You."

"Uh-oh," Keigo muttered into his coffee. Mizuiro looked upon Kon and beamed.

"Good morning," he said.

"_**You**_." Tatsuki advanced on him. Kon took a step backwards.

"Um?"

"You're a dead man, Ichigo!" she bellowed before leaping at his face, foot-first. Isshin watched with interest as she took the mod-soul down. Kon cried out his true identity, but eventually gave up and took the beating.

"Sir?" Keigo ventured, "Shouldn't you stop her?"

"Bleeding is good for them; makes 'em less hungry," Isshin said. It was unclear whom he was referring to; both Tatsuki's knuckles and Ichigo's nose were bloody. She shook her hand in surprise and left the occupied body of the orange-haired freak alone. Kon knelt where he was and said:

"To hell with Ichigo's other friends. I'll just wait for nee-san and Orihime-chan to come home."

They watched him crawl away, and something slowly dawned on Tatsuki.

"Ichigo's not home, is he?"

"Tatsuki-chan, you're so bright!" Isshin gave her a high-five, but she just looked a little more confused. Keigo took her hand into his.

"You're bleeding..."

She took it back. "Occupational hazard. I'll be fine."

Mizuiro drank his coffee and looked around with a sort of fascination. A sort of so-this-is-what-a-home-is that attracted Isshin's attention. He watched the young boy and tried to remember what his story was. Bad parents, or no parents—which was it? He was definitely the one that liked older girls. The one on his left, the one sitting next to the Arisawa girl—he was too smart to mess with cougars. He didn't have the right kind of cunning manipulative skill for it. Ichigo's dad bummed hard when he found that sort of Urahara trait in a teenager. It didn't sit well with him and his notion that childhood ought to be dragged out for as long as possible.

Ryuuken disagreed of course; he believed children became adults far quicker than Isshin thought and that they shouldn't be raised delicately. However, Ryuuken's son hated him and no one was going to listen to a parent that failed that spectacularly.

Sometimes they thought of compromising. Occasionally they'd realize that children grow at all kinds of speeds and have all kinds of needs. And then they'd get uncomfortable with the idea of agreeing and butt heads violently, like rams.

"Uncle," Tatsuki addressed Isshin, and he shoved a glass of water into her hands. "Uncle, I hate Ichigo."

Isshin's heart jerked. "Not you too, Tatsuki-chan?"

"I've been his friend for longer than I've been Orihime's," she admitted, "But I like Orihime better. She needs me more, and I need her. Uncle I need her _**so bad**_."

Keigo and Mizuiro shifted slightly and thought of lesbian porn. Isshin stopped the urge long enough to understand that his son wasn't someone to protect, but Inoue Orihime was. Still, it hurt the father more than he expected to be told that his flesh and blood (and sweat and guts) was hated. Ichigo is a good kid, he thought, what did he do to become so friendless? He got a girlfriend, is that it?

"He has no right no right no right…" she continued in that vein for a while, "To be happy when Orihime's always crying. Not a lot in front of me, but as soon as I close the door behind me I know what she's doing alone in that apartment where her brother used to live. She's got a hole in her heart the size of France and I'm not enough to fill it up and it's all Ichigo's fault."

Keigo spoke softly, which was unusual for him. Maybe it was the fear of getting the tar beaten out of him. Maybe it was the 2 AM darkness they could feel pressing in on the house. "He has a right, same as Orihime does. You're being unfair. You're being jealous."

Tatsuki glared at him. "I am not Chizuru."

"You don't have to be lesbian to be in love with Inoue-san," said Mizuiro, "She's just. She's special."

Keigo cleared his throat and lifted his arms. "May I compare you to a princess and a dragon…"

"Why am I a dragon." Tatsuki gripped his thin thigh tightly, calmly, dangerously. "Am I not good enough to be a girl too?"

Mizuiro slipped his hand under her talons and freed his whimpering friend. Leaving Keigo to rub at his wound, Mizuiro looked Tatsuki dead in the eye. "You're the one who said you needed her. A princess can get along fine without a dragon; she'll have a prince and a fairy godmother and an assortment of woodland creatures to frame her character. A dragon without a hoard to guard is just a beast."

"You son of a—"

"Hitting Kurosaki-san and hurting Asano-san won't get you the place in her heart that you lost. You didn't think a girlhood friendship was going to last all your life? That's not how the world works. Don't be childish."

"It's not just a girlhood friendship," said Tatsuki. Her eyes were red hot, glaring at him. Mizuiro met them with remarkable frost. Keigo, trapped between them, burned and froze simultaneously. Isshin, silent across the table, was learning loads. Sometimes adults forget that—that you only need to be quiet for teenagers to speak their minds.

"But it's not a lesbian crush," Mizuiro said.

"It's…" Tatsuki hesitated, even in her uninhibited state. "Somewhere in between. It was meant to _**last**_."

"She can't throw you aside."

"She won't."

"Ow," Keigo said, and slid out from under them. Crawling under the coffee table like the rat he was, he emerged by Isshin's knee. The man looked down and smiled.

"Hello, Asano-kun."

The boy blinked and howled abruptly, "Not you too! Use my given name! _**Don't be so polite to me, people!**_"

And outside on the street, someone wasn't. Someone, as they heard through the open windows, was going around screeching for that son of a mother, Keigo. Keigo was going to get a foot up his ass and a boot to the head if he didn't show himself right then. Keigo was a walking corpse. Keigo was living on borrowed time. Keigo was gonna regret ever being born second to a sister like Asano Mizuho.

"Onee-san~" he gasped, and Isshin patted his shoulder.

"Chill. I got this."

Tatsuki and Mizuiro broke (intense!) eye contact and looked round.

"Goodbye, Asano-san," the latter called to his fleeing compatriot, whose path was led by Kurosaki Isshin. Keigo gave him the finger.

"This is completely your fault! Why did I have to run into you when I was out getting juice?"

"Everybody has somebody," Tatsuki yawned hugely and tipped over on the sofa. Mizuiro considered her before deciding that Isshin could be trusted with a passed-out teenager. Hopefully. A few minutes later the bearded brunet came back inside, and grinned.

"Tatsuki-chan fell asleep? Guess she's staying over."

Then he remembered a sick story Ichigo had once told him and decided to stay too, for Tatsuki's sake.

Tonight, he was the dragon's dragon.

Isshin didn't have a problem with it.

**x.x.x.x.x.x **


	9. Can of Worms

**The Losing Side**

**A/N: I've done up the last chapter to include Chizuru and so truly justify its new name. It was hastily meshed together; if the result is sloppy forgive me.**

**Chapter Nine: **_Can of Worms _

**x.x.x.x.x.x**

Renji bounced on the balls of his feet and made Byakuya uncomfortable. It was too early in the afternoon for him to request naptime and too late to order lunch. The Kuchiki lord prided himself on being able to anticipate and deny everything his deputy desired. Not knowing set the captain on edge, and Renji's inscrutable grin wasn't helping matters at all.

"What is it, Renji?"

"I've filed the week's reports, sir."

"Go oversee training for the new recruits."

"We haven't got any, captain. The Academy's in the middle of a semester."

Byakuya trailed his hand down the document he was reading. "The cafeteria menus for next month need your seal of approval."

"Done. We'll be having more red snapper meals due to a surplus of that fish. Also the price of tomatoes has gone up but I've adjusted the budget to compensate."

"The budget! What have you compromised?"

"Laundry. We're using a cheaper service from now on."

"Hmm. The barracks maintenance schedule…"

"Is up on the notice board."

Byakuya was starting to become a little peeved. "Meetings with the seated officers. Watering the grounds. Soul burial detail."

"Undertaken, accomplished, accounted for. Sir."

A silence trespassed upon the scene. Byakuya's hand reached the end of the document, and signed with a flourish. He set it carefully aside and picked up another from the endless pile awaiting him. Soul Society had become a sort of parliamentary monarchy with Genryuusai leading state affairs and the noble family heads throwing their weight and opinions around. Every day Byakuya received petitions to reinstate the Council of 46 and remove the title "Captain Commander" from Seireitei's hierarchy. Everyone was paranoid of power and secrecy. Gotei 13, however, was largely unchanged. Turmoil raged around it but each Division remained loyal to its captain, and each captain to the commander.

Byakuya looked up. "What do you want?"

"I'd like the next two days off, sir."

"What on earth for?"

Renji scuffed his feet and aggravated Byakuya further. "It's been a long time since I've been with Hinamori and Kira and Hisagi-san."

"I see. What are your plans?"

"Kira made us all take a vow to be sober," the redhead said glumly, "So there won't be any booze. I think he got scared of his own behavior when Matsumoto-san taught him…anyway, Hisagi-sempai said we should go camping."

Byakuya understood. Lieutenants and captains were on call even when they were off duty and needed special permission to leave the city limits for personal reasons. He waited for Renji to ask.

"So, um. I can have the time off, cap'n?"

"Yes." And, because his deputy was showing a strange reluctance to beg for what he wanted today, the nobleman went a little soft and generous with fondness for his foolishness. "I'll draw up your permission in a moment. Wait here."

Renji caught on swiftly and held both hands up, palms out. "That's okay, sir. We're not crossing the Wall."

"Camping within city limits?" Byakuya frowned.

"Oh, we'll find some clump of trees."

The breezy assurance and the spring in Renji's step as he left only deepened Byakuya's frown and misgivings. Not everything was alright in his world. Still, he shoved his deputy's deeds to the back of his mind and concentrated on his work. Less than an hour later he took a little break from the increasingly stuffy room to nip outside and interact with his men and women, the valiant soldiers that would lay their lives down for others' salvation. It did his heart good to be able to count on them, and know that they could count on him. It also prepared him for that moment when he returned to his office and found Kyoraku Shunsui and Hitsugaya Toshiro sitting in it.

Neither Shunsui nor Toshiro shared Byakuya's soft outlook of their soldiers. The former was ancient and had seen his command change many times, faster than he could develop feelings, fresh souls replacing fallen ones before their names had faded from his mind. The latter was too young, too new to captaincy and its pressures, and trying too hard to love his lieutenant to spare affection for the rest of his underlings. Still, they were both good captains—maybe better than the Kuchiki lord.

As far as personal preferences went, Byakuya bore no great tolerance towards Genryuusai's star pupil. Shunsui to him was a distant super-sempai, to be accorded a modicum of respect and not much besides. The promising and proficient Toshiro, however, shared a more cordial relationship with Byakuya than the rest of the brunet's colleagues. They had in common prodigious talent, draining deputies, and a sort of smug dignity. Toshiro was the kind of youth the Kuchiki family often adopted. Coming from the Rukongai, he was no less regal than the oldest strain of noble blood.

He had no business in the 6th Division's headquarters, especially in the company of someone as disreputable as Kyoraku Shunsui. And yet he stood in front of the great windows behind Byakuya's own seat, sunshine splashing on his face. He twitched away in irritation, shying towards the shade and Shunsui. The drunkard was seated with his back to Byakuya, carefully pouring out measures of sake from a china bottle into three saucers set on the desk.

"Ah, Kuchiki." Toshiro nodded, gestured. "We've awaited you."

Mystified and rather miffed, Byakuya moved towards his desk. "But why? No one even informed you were coming. Your lieutenant," he addressed Shunsui, "thinks it best to warn me of your visitations."

Shunsui grinned. "Ah yes. Nanao-chan is snippy and efficient and entirely too disenchanted with me. Well, I can still sneak past her when I feel like it, Byakuya. Come, sit. Sorry—it's your office. Hope you don't mind—it's perfect weather for a drink with friends."

Byakuya sniffed and took his seat. They were gathered around the low table, kneeling on cushions. The captain of the 6th preferred this to the tables and hard-backed chairs that Toshiro used. Shunsui wasn't sure what his office was furnished with. He hadn't visited it in many years. Nanao had him do his work wherever she could persuade him to stay still.

"Well?"

Toshiro and Shunsui exchanged glances. The former began to speak as the latter handed out their saucers of sake. "Do you…hmm. That is to say, are you pleased with—no, rather—what do you think of. Er, ahem." He faltered and looked abashed and hid his face in his drink. Shunsui leaped in to rescue him.

"Kurosaki Ichigo's an interesting boy, wouldn't you say, Byakuya?"

Since his shameful shattering at Uryuu's house the other day Byakuya had grudgingly come to accept that Rukia could court and wed whomsoever she pleased. He wouldn't cause neither his sister nor himself the sort of heartbreak he and his parents had gone through during his lobbying for his own love. There weren't even any grounds to reject Ichigo as an unsuitable man on—the Kuchiki household loved the star of Soul Society. The entire city loved the fruit of Isshin's loins. Byakuya, Renji, and some other dissatisfied weeds of dissent simply suffered the greatness of the boy. He mulled the question over, having long been one who was loath to speak without thinking.

"He's the hero of the Winter War," he settled for saying blandly, "Who else is more interesting? At the moment."

Toshiro and Shunsui looked at each other again. Toshiro flicked his eyes away and then back to his companion; Shunsui kept his gaze steady and apparently eloquent. Toshiro gave the vaguest of shrugs; the whole parody of subtlety took mere seconds. Byakuya wondered when they'd gotten close enough to be that communicative.

"The thing is," Shunsui resumed, "We were hoping to get your personal, dirty feelings on the topic."

"I won't mince words with you, Kuchiki." Toshiro looked Byakuya dead in the eye. "Do you like Kurosaki?"

"What a strange thing to ask. He's a likeable boy."

"Our grievance precisely," Shunsui murmured, "It's the likeable ones that often grate on a man's nerves. Well, Byakuya? Is the boy to your taste or not?"

The younger man lost his patience. "This is ridiculous. Will you tell me outright why you're here? It can't be to conduct a popularity poll."

"There wouldn't be any need to," Toshiro said darkly, "Kurosaki holds the hearts of Soul Society in thrall. And that is our problem—no, Kyoraku, let me get it out. Our lieutenants," he told the uninformed captain, "adore Kurosaki. And we don't like it one bit."

"Good grief," Shunsui shifted uneasily. "You make us sound like jealous lovers."

Toshiro snorted. "A lover? To Matsumoto? I wouldn't wish that upon any man."

"And yet many men wish it upon themselves," the 8th Division's commander arched an eyebrow. "You don't see the appeal?"

"She's a great abhorrent beast I can hardly rein in long enough to fulfill her duties. What use would she be in a committed relationship?"

"She was committed enough to Ichimaru," Shunsui said cheerfully—and wished he could take it back. That was a touchy topic even after a year, and would be even after twenty. Byakuya was silent; assessing their conversation and wishing Renji hadn't taken time off. There had to be some way to extricate himself from these two before he broke again and began a rant on Ichigo's many faults. That was why they were here, of course. Either they thought he was losing his lieutenant to Ichigo's right honorable tendencies (Byakuya smothered a sneer at the thought) or they suspected he himself was cross about the prospect of becoming a brother-in-law to the boy. It was proven to be the former when Shunsui turned him and said:

"Abarai's fought by his side for a long time, hasn't he? He must be head over heels for the squirt."

Byakuya saw an opening and lunged. "Actually, Renji finds him appallingly shortcoming of a proper man. You might find a more sympathetic listener there."

"Meaning you're not much inclined to sympathy, I suppose." Shunsui opened his eyes and saw a certain hardness around Byakuya's jaw. It signified his self-control, his refusal to slip into a diatribe against anyone. Shunsui assumed that the aristocrat was stopping himself from breaking out in defense of his kin-to-be. Toshiro nudged him softly.

"Then do you think there's truth to that rumor? That Abarai had an anti-Ichigo party at his quarters?"

"Seems to be," Kyoraku Shunsui somberly said, "Seems to be."

Byakuya's heart nearly stopped. "What? Where did you hear that?"

His older colleague grinned. "I heard from Ukitake who heard from Hisagi Shuuhei who was there for a while and talked to Ayasegawa Yumichika about it. Last week was quite a lot of fun for some people and I am most disgruntled to have not been invited."

Unsure whether Shunsui knew of his attendance there and was withholding it to wield it later, Byakuya eyed him with some suspicion. Toshiro, though, had had enough. He nodded again to Byakuya and made as if to take his leave.

"I told Kyoraku you were above this sort of thing," he said with some satisfaction, and the man whose superiority he had vouched for felt a twinge of guilt, "Anyway, we are not. We will go find your lieutenant, if you don't mind."

"Wait," Byakuya said, "Why _**aren't**_ you above this? Matsumoto and Ise's affections are their own business."

"That's what I thought at first," admitted the teal-eyed dynamite, "Matsumoto caught her gigai forcing itself on Ichigo a while ago and rescued him; she's been mooning ever since over his…body. It wasn't any more aggravating than the usual drivel she spews to get out of work. Yet, somehow, it's less healthy. Less decent. I suspect." He hesitated and sought the comfort of Kyoraku Shunsui's mellow gaze; Byakuya waited for him to finish. "I suspect she's somehow channeling unfulfilled feelings she harbored for Ichimaru towards Kurosaki."

"There now, Hitsugaya," Shunsui seemed pleased, "You do care for her, and you do have good eyes."

"Silence, man. Kuchiki, we'll be going now."

Byakuya did nothing to stop them.

000

"You know how I know you're gay?" Hisagi Shuuhei asked his junior as he gathered firewood from the forest of white trunked trees, "You smell like ass most of the time."

"You know how I know you're gay?" Abarai Renji wiped a hand across his forehead as he manfully struggled to put up a tent on the plateau of execution where Kuchiki Rukia had nearly lost her life, "You wear sleeveless clothes."

"You know how I know you're gay?"

"No. How do you know I'm gay?"

"You make out with Kuchiki-taichou when no-one's looking."

"You know how I know you're gay?" Renji smirked, "You picture me makin' out with the captain."

They both turned to Kira Izuru, who was unpacking beignets and a thermos of hot milky coffee. He swallowed and said, "I don't think either of you are gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that."

Hinamori Momo, having long since set up the other tent with Izuru's help, timidly ventured a calumny. "I know Kira-kun's gay because he wears his hair like a girl."

Renji and Shuuhei howled uproariously while Izuru turned rufescent. Momo apologized for muscling in on the men's joke, but Renji waved it aside with the proviso that she always be this forthcoming in questioning Izuru's masculinity.

They were camping on prohibited grounds. It wasn't on any bulletin board or in any of their job descriptions but it went unsaid, assumed—no one was permitted on the plateau of punishment where the great bird of destruction, Sokyoku, lay dormant. The weird woods on the far corner of the mesa where they'd come up that long ago day of Ichigo's fight with Byakuya were discouragement enough, or so the higher ups had thought. None of them had counted on Shuuhei, though. Being close to Ukitake Jyuushiro he had always heard tales of the past generations, and no generation was more vivid in Jyuushiro's mind than the generation best forgotten—the generation of Kuukaku, Yoruichi and Kisuke. Those three scoundrels had broken more laws than the Council of 46 had thought to instate and _**gotten away with it**_. Those three hooligans never did anything without first checking to make sure it would cause the maximum amount of inconvenience for the maximum amount of people possible. Those three kids, Jyuushiro remembered fondly with the folly of hindsight, could never be outdone.

It got to Shuuhei, who had led a gang of urchins in the Rukongai into various sorts of trouble until a hollow ate most of them. He had led a gang in school too until a hollow ate most of them. He was leading a gang now that could eat hollows for tea. Kuukaku, Yoruichi and Kisuke? Shuuhei could've snorted at them. It was about time there was a new bunch of irritants in the delicate nasal membranes of Seireitei.

So it had been his bright idea to set up a slumber party here in this most desolate of places in the city walls, on the hill where great and terrible reprobates had perished.

Really, it was the height of stupidity in more than one way.

"What's going on here Hisagi-kun?" asked Shunsui pleasantly as he stalked out of the forest with Toshiro in his wake. "Not a sleepover on Sokyoku Hill?"

"Why ask when you already know?" Toshiro seemed a bit irritable. "Abarai, why are you not alone?"

Shuuhei turned to his buddy with an indomitable air of triumph. "_**This**_ is how I know you're gay. Kyoraku-taichou and Hitsugaya-taichou wanna be alone with you."

"Good grief Hisagi-kun," Shunsui smiled, "What exactly does that imply about us?"

Toshiro was less bothered about the doubt cast dubiously on his sexuality. "Leave this place right now and come with us."

Hisagi Shuuhei immediately put himself between the redhead and the red hot chilli pepper. "It's my fault, sir. I'm the instigator; they were under duress the whole time."

"If this is what I think it's about," Shunsui said, warming his hands at the fire Izuru and Momo were frozen by, "You're doing it wrong. Kuukaku-chan would've sold out Yoruichi-chan and Kisuke-kun in a heartbeat."

"How do you—" Renji began sharply.

"That's not what—" Toshiro started to say crossly.

"Could the captains please—" Shuuhei hissed urgently.

A dozen black-clad Special Ops officers and their commander surrounded them. Toshiro twitched in irritation. Momo fainted and Izuru caught her; Shunsui took his hat off in respect to the woman that led their discoverers. Renji groaned, and Shuuhei finished:

"…keep their reiatsu down."

000

"Desecration! Of the most feared and revered and severe of all sites in our city! Sokyoku Hill and its forest, despoiled by a bunch of lieutenant-level numbskulls! And the captains of two Divisions have the gall to join them at their _**game**_! Captain-Commander. Soutaichou-sama! I will remind you of that long-ago day after Kurosaki Ichigo's rescue of Kuchiki Rukia and what I said to you. _**Our deputies must be taken into hand.**_Not only could they not subdue the invader Kurosaki or his friends, most of them are uncouth, arrogant alcoholics with little to recommend!"

Yamamoto Genryuusai-Shigekuni listened with palms joined at the fingertips and eyes closed, but Hitsugaya Toshiro had had enough. He wasn't some new recruit dragged up for damaging doilies, he was a captain of Gotei 13 and if he was to be impeached he would not have it done by an annoying wasp like Soifon. He stepped out of the line-up he had thus far deigned to stand in and spoke for his boss to hear, and the bitch to take heed.

"This is history you're dredging up, Soifon. Our failure to respond to the invaders efficiently was due to a great many things, and we've already fought about them and decided that our lieutenants are the least of it. In fact they are the ones who acted most honorably when compared to examples like Kurotsuchi Mayuri or Zaraki Kenpachi." His cool aquamarine eyes took some wind out of her conceit, conveying to her that she was an example too.

"Furthermore," Shunsui always had an easier time building an argument once the ball had begun to roll, "neither Hitsugaya nor I were joining any game. We simply noted their reiatsu and came to see what they were doing. It was our presence that alerted Soifon's good men to the intrusion upon Sokyoku Hill."

"Finally," Genryuusai spoke and everyone listened, "There is no written law that any of them were breaking."

Renji and his cohorts breathed sighs of relief. Shuuhei looked appalled with himself for overlooking such a basic requirement. Soifon was apoplectic, but had to release her prey in the end.

On their way out, Shunsui and Toshiro inveigled Renji away from his herd and over to a small pub under the shadow of the city's great wall. Having secured a booth in the back, they settled him on one side and sat facing him. The redhead, aching with curiosity to know what the great men could want of him, leaned in to listen.

"So," Toshiro leaped into conversation, "We hear you hate Kurosaki."

"Who talked?" Renji demanded, and immediately regretted it. He continued with a little more nonchalance. "It's a lie."

"That's not what Kuchiki thinks."

"The _**captain**_ set you on me? _**My**_ captain?"

"Your captain," Shunsui agreed, "Be honest. Do you want a lager or ale?"

The manager of the store that had come to ask that same question looked taken aback, and assured them that they had at their disposal a much wider range of drinks available. Renji asked for beer; Shunsui opted for his current flame, vodka. Toshiro gnawed on the salted peanuts that came with their beverages and refused to take his eyes off of Renji.

"It's true. I'm not a fan," admitted Byakuya's man, "I…I guess you must not be crazy about him either?"

Toshiro cleared his throat and wiped his fingers on a napkin. "No. We're not. What's your beef with him?"

Renji was hardly going to confess his deep, abiding love for Rukia to them. "He's just…annoying."

"It's Kuchiki, isn't it," Shunsui deduced, "The sister. His betrothed."

"It's okay," Toshiro told the aghast officer, "Our own lieutenants like him, so we're sort of in the same boat."

"I think not," Shunsui dissented, "Abarai's got a bit more on his plate to stomach."

"True," Toshiro assented, "Nonetheless, the next time you get some people together to bitch about him, don't hesitate to invite us."

"I never did that," Renji said sharply, choosing to neither confirm nor deny the accusation that he desired a promised woman, "That really is a rumor. Ichigo happened to be a topic that came up. And. And! Hitsugaya-taichou, you of all people want to sit around sneering at someone just because Matsumoto-san likes him more than you?"

Toshiro's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Don't look down on me, Abarai. I'm not jealous of him, if that's what you mean. I am irritated though, and these days there's not a place in Seireitei where you can speak ill of Kurosaki Ichigo without being drowned in disapproval. We have to vent our feelings somehow."

"We're not above sneering," Shunsui summarized.

"I heard Kurotsuchi Mayuri was there. Why shouldn't we come too?"

"I heard there was booze," complained the captain of the 8th, "It must've been top notch to tempt down Zaraki. How could I not have known about it?"

Stifled by their rank disbelief that last weekend had been anything but a pity party for victims of Ichigo's appeal, Renji put his head in his hands and sighed, and wished Uryuu was by his side to commiserate with him. If things continued in this vein he would definitely be ousted as a mean-spirited man. He could already see the future: every man in Seireitei standing on his doorstep on Friday evenings waiting to _**vent**_, as Hitsugaya put it. One day Ichigo would know. Renji was half-tempted to tell him straight away and so avert that nasty confrontation when his old comrade found out from someone else.

"Abarai, are you listening?"

"Oh, I am," he muttered.

"What do you think? If we move the location of the gathering every week from your place to my quarters to Kyoraku's then it would be better. We could rope in Iba and disguise them as Shinigami Men's Association elite meetings."

Renji stood up. Shunsui and Toshiro looked at him in some surprise.

"Do whatever you want and disguise it however you like, sirs," the man snapped in disgust, "I'm through with going around Ichigo's back and whining about him."

"Don't think badly of us, Abarai," Shunsui soothed both him and Toshiro with his tones, "We know he's a good man. That's part of why—"

"He's so intolerable. I know. All the same, I'm done." He put some money down for his drink, and Toshiro's lips went very thin. "Excuse me. I should go."

When he left, Toshiro looked to his companion.

"Are we really being dishonorable enough to deserve that sort of derision?"

Shunsui sighed. Wasn't that a question to be pondered?

**x.x.x.x.x.x**

**Thank you so much for your patience! **


End file.
